Tea-polyphenol treated skin collagen owns coalesced adaptive-hydration, tensile strength and shape-memory property

Yanting Han; Yuanzhang Jiang; Jinlian Hu

doi:10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2020.04.002

Tea-polyphenol treated skin collagen owns coalesced adaptive-hydration, tensile strength and shape-memory property

Int J Biol Macromol. 2020 Apr 4:158:1-8. doi: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2020.04.002. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Yanting Han¹, Yuanzhang Jiang¹, Jinlian Hu²

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Textiles and Clothing, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.
² Department of Biomedical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China. Electronic address: jinliahu@cityu.edu.hk.

PMID: 32251748
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2020.04.002

Abstract

Tea-polyphenol, as non-toxic skincare, even a therapeutic agent, was extensively studied from chemical, biological and physiological perspectives. This study reveals physical intelligences of a tea-polyphenol treated skin collagen (TP-treated SC) through a material-approach. Compared to untreated one, the TP-treated SC shows resistance to over-swelling and dehydration damage. There exists an inflection point in stress value of TP-treated SC below extension of 25%. Such promptly transformation from flexibility to stiffness is self-adaptive stretch behavior. Moreover, TP-treated SC owns water responsive shape-memory property. These effects are attributed to polyphenol as plasticizer with chains crosslinked to multi-sites on collagen-fibers as netpoints. The discovery, mechanism and method, which have not been reported before, may help to develop new shape memory device, skincare products, as well as provides insights into the physiological behavior of collagen contained tissue.

Keywords: Shape memory; Skin collagen; Tea-polyphenol.