Feather keratin hydrogel for wound repair: preparation, healing effect and biocompatibility evaluation

Keratins are highly attractive for wound healing due to their inherent bioactivity, biocompatibility and physical properties. However, nearly all wound healing studies have focused on human hair keratins, and the wound-repair effects and in vivo biocompatibilities of feather keratins are not clear. Feather keratins are derived from chicken feathers, which are considered to be the major waste in the poultry industry, and the quality of feather keratin is easier to control than that of human hair keratin due to human hair perming and colouring-dyeing. Thus, we extracted keratins from chicken feathers, and a feather keratin hydrogel was then prepared and used to test the in vivo wound-healing properties and biocompatibility. The results indicated that feather keratins displayed wound-healing and biodegradation properties similar to those of human hair keratins and were also highly compatible with those of the tissue and devoid of immunogenicity and systematic toxicity. Collectively, these results suggested that feather keratin hydrogel could be used for biomedical applications, particularly effective wound healing.