Protective Effect of Chitin Urocanate Nanofibers against Ultraviolet Radiation

Marine Drugs

Ikuko Ito³  Toshikazu Yoneda²  Yoshihiko Omura²  Tomohiro Osaki³  Shinsuke Ifuku¹  Hiroyuki Saimoto¹  Kazuo Azuma³  Tomohiro Imagawa³  Takeshi Tsuka³  Yusuke Murahata³  Norihiko Ito³  Yoshiharu Okamoto³  Saburo Minami³ 

[1] Graduate School of Engineering, Tottori University, Tottori 680-8552, Japan;Omura Toryo Co., Ltd., 87, 3-Chome, Chiyomi, Tottori 680-0991, Japan;Department of Veterinary Clinical Medicine, Tottori University, Tottori 680-8553, Japan;

关键词: chitin nanofibrils;    urocanic acid;    UVB;    erythema;    sunburn cell;   

DOI  :  10.3390/md13127076

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Urocanic acid is a major ultraviolet (UV)-absorbing chromophore. Chitins are highly crystalline structures that are found predominantly in crustacean shells. Alpha-chitin consists of microfibers that contain nanofibrils embedded in a protein matrix. Acid hydrolysis is a common method used to prepare chitin nanofibrils (NFs). We typically obtain NFs by hydrolyzing chitin with acetic acid. However, in the present study, we used urocanic acid to prepare urocanic acid chitin NFs (UNFs) and examined its protective effect against UVB radiation. Hos: HR-1 mice coated with UNFs were UVB irradiated (302 nm, 150 mJ/cm²), and these mice showed markedly lower UVB radiation-induced cutaneous erythema than the control. Additionally, sunburn cells were rarely detected in the epidermis of UNFs-coated mice after UVB irradiation. Although the difference was not as significant as UNFs, the number of sunburn cells in mice treated with acetic acid chitin nanofibrils (ANFs) tended to be lower than in control mice. These results demonstrate that ANFs have a protective effect against UVB and suggest that the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects of NFs influence the protective effect of ANFs against UVB radiation. The combination of NFs with other substances that possess UV-protective effects, such as urocanic acid, may provide an enhanced protective effect against UVB radiation.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.