Recombinant collagen, as an alternative to natural collagen, has the potential to be widely used in biomaterials, biomedicine, etc. Diverse recombinant collagens and their variants can be industrially produced in a variety of expression systems, which lays a foundation for exploring and expanding the clinical application of recombinant collagens. We reviewed different expression systems for recombinant collagens, such as prokaryotic expression systems, yeast expression systems, as well as plant, insect, mammal, and human cell expression systems, and introduced the advantages, potential applications, and limitations of recombinant collagen. In particularly, we focused on the current progress in the recombinant collagen production, including recombinant expression system construction and hydroxylation strategies of recombinant collagen, and summarized the current biomedical applications of recombinant collagen.
Keywords: biomedical application; recombinant collagen; recombinant collagen variant; recombinant human-like collagen protein; recombinant protein expression system.