A facile extraction of keratin from pig hair and its properties

The pig hair keratin (PHK) has been successfully extracted by a facile method of reduction, and the optimal yield of pure keratin is 61%. FT-IR and CD spectra indicate that the secondary structure of the extracted PHK is mostly β-sheet and random coil. UV-Vis spectra show that characteristic absorption peaks at the vicinities of 208 nm and 275 nm were assigned to both benzene ring and auxochrome substituents such as -OH and -NH2. The results of elemental analysis and amino acid analysis show that hydrophobic and hydrophilic amino acids in the hydrolyzed PHK totaled about 53.66 mol% and 46.34 mol%. Based on the results of SDS-PAGE and MALDI-TOF MS, the molecular weight of the as-obtained PHK is 10.86 kDa with low dispersion. TG analysis declares that the decomposition temperature of PHK is 280 °C. The MTT-cytotoxicity test declares that the extracted PHK has no toxic and negative effects on human skin basically. It is promising that this biocompatible keratin can be readily used in various realms of biomedicine and biotechnology.