ABSTRACT
Starfish or sea stars are star-shaped echinoderms belonging to the class Asteroidea. About 1,500 species of starfish occur on the seabed in all the world’s oceans, from the tropics to frigid polar waters. Starfish have a central disc and five arms, though some species have a larger number of arms. Starfish are seldom consumed as a food as most of them often contain saponins and tetradotoxins which are extremely poisonous. Starfish are sometimes eaten in China, Japan and in Micronesia. Collagen from fish is now considered a safe material compared to gelatin from cattle. Some of the important biomedical applications of collagen include to make bandages for burn/wound cover dressings, bone filling materials, antithrombogenic surfaces, biodegradable sutures and immobilization of therapeutic enzymes. Immunoblotting assay using polyclonal anti-type I collagen antibody revealed that the starfish collagen contained similar affinity motifs. In XTT assay, pepsin solubilized collagen suspension had cell growth activity and showed no cytotoxicity.
