Chemistry: natural resins or derivatives; peptides or proteins; – Proteins – i.e. – more than 100 amino acid residues – Scleroproteins – e.g. – fibroin – elastin – silk – etc.
Reexamination Certificate
1997-10-28
2002-01-08
Low, Christopher S. F. (Department: 1653)
Chemistry: natural resins or derivatives; peptides or proteins;
Proteins, i.e., more than 100 amino acid residues
Scleroproteins, e.g., fibroin, elastin, silk, etc.
C530S402000, C530S418000, C530S422000, C530S427000, C424S063000, C424S070100, C424S073000, C514S712000, C514S844000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06337389
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to the method and process for the production of collagen preparations from invertebrate marine animals including jellyfish and compositions of these preparations. These collagen preparations are useful in a variety of applications ranging from medical, pharmacological, and cosmetic. The composition is available as a mixture in a gel state, in a freeze-dried state, in a salt-reprecipitated state, and can be delivered as a mixture in a fluidized state, as a mixture in a gel state, and/or in association with surfactant/detergent combinations as an intact collagen molecule or as a hydrolyzed collagen product. The process for the production of collagen from invertebrate marine sources including jellyfish, takes advantage of the physical and chemical characteristics of jellyfish where the jellyfish is essentially a gelatinous state of collagen in water surrounding simple digestive systems and attached to other collagenous structures generally described as tentacles which are used in the capture of prey for the purpose of feeding.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The term jellyfish refers to hundreds of species of primitive marine animals belonging to the class Scyphozoa, phylum Coelenterata. Coelenterata is a phylum name derived from the Greek words meaning “hollow gut”. It refers to important attributes of a group of invertebrate animals, called coelenterates, having a single internal cavity for digestion and excretion. Jellyfish often become abundant in coastal areas, particularly in late summer, and are regarded as a nuisance. Jellyfish sting swimmers, clog nuclear power plants, and fishing boat nets and, at times can cause severe damage to fishing nets owing to their huge volume and weight. In the water they are beautiful, colorful, and diaphanous creatures, yet most people only see them as a washed-up blob on the beach. Jellyfish can be found in both tropical and temperate waters of the world. The environmental factors affecting the occurrence of jellyfish are temperature, oxygen, salinity, and predation. Some species of jellyfish have great commercial potential. For example, the US coastal waters of the Florida Panhandle and all of the northern Gulf of Mexico provide an ideal environment for the seasonal proliferation of
Stomolopus meleagris
, which is commonly called the cannon-ball jellyfish. This species is found in abundance in certain areas of the world. For instance, it occurs from Southern New England, USA, to Venezuela and the Gulf of Mexico. One swarm observed at Port Arkansas, Tex., USA was estimated to have drifted through the channel at a rate of approximately 2 million per hour. Jellyfish occur world-wide, being caught in the Indian, Northwest Pacific and Western Central Pacific Oceans by Far Eastern countries including Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and China. In 1991, for example, the world harvest of jellyfish was 126,419 tons and Japanese buyers pay up to $25.00 per kilogram for large processed Grade “A”
Rhopilema esculenta
jellyfish.
Fresh jellyfish contain approximately 95 to 98% water by weight, depending on the particular species and approximately 2 to 3% salt by weight, which is in approximate osmotic equilibrium with salt water. The contents of solids other than salt is extremely low; not much higher than 1% by weight. Protein content is approximately 1.3%. The lipid content of jellyfish is very low. On a wet-weight basis, lipid contents in the range 0.0046 to 0.2% have been reported. The nonpolar lipids of lyophilized jellyfish comprised 31.1% of the total lipids and sterols may account for approximately 47.8% of the nonpolar lipids. The cholesterol content of four species of coelenterates was in the range of 72.2 to 88.8% of the sterol content. Calculated from the above values, the cholesterol content on a wet-weight basis would be less than 0.35 mg/100 gm. Commercially available processed jellyfish contain approximately 5.5% protein, 25% salt and 68% water, however this type of jellyfish would be for consumption and would need to be desalted prior to consumption. As a food-stuff, the protein content of jellyfish in terms of protein level is similar to foods such as pasta and boiled rice.
Jellyfish proteins consist almost entirely of collagen. Analysis of the amino acid composition of mesogloea hydrolysate showed that glycine is the most abundant amino acid, and that hydroxyproline and hydroxy lysine, which are characteristic of collagen, are present. Tryptophan is almost totally absent. Thus, mesogloea contain proteins belonging to the collagen group.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is concerned with the preparation of collagen compositions from invertebrate classes and species of marine animals constituting several hundreds of species of primitive marine animals, including species of jellyfish belonging to the class Scyphozoa, phylum Coelenterata. The present invention includes other classes of marine organisms and other species of invertebrates present in the marine environment where invertebrate type V collagen, the designation to be applied to collagens described by this present invention, possess similar physical and chemical characteristics. The present fibrous collagen products are unique and distinguished from previous collagen products formed from vertebrate animals species in that the marine invertebrate animals including jellyfish live and function in an environment different from that in which the vertebrate animal species live and function. For example, the marine jellyfish are found in salt-water environments hypertonic to vertebrate animals; are poikilothermal, i.e. have a body temperature that varies with the environmental temperature, and generally live and function at low temperatures compared to the body temperatures of most vertebrate species; live under variable pH conditions, but generally at pH values significantly less than “physiological” pH (pH 7.4) characteristic of vertebrate species; and lack significant tensile strength in their body structures. These attributes, i.e. pH, temperature, salt concentration, and tensile properties, represent important parameters used in the extraction and preparation of collagens from vertebrate species and thus, extraction and preparation of collagens from marine jellyfish would constitute a unique and novel process and the collagen preparation would have unique and novel properties even compared to type V collagen preparations from vertebrate species.
In the present invention, invertebrate marine animals including jellyfish of various genera, are subjected to mild mechanical disruption followed by mild acid solubilization of the disrupted tissue. Collagens are precipitated by salts with mild shearing and/or by continuous dialysis and are formed into aqueous, gelled, precipitated, and/or mat/sponge preparations. The fibrous collagen preparation(s), constitute primarily invertebrate type V telopeptide containing collagen, and are useful in a variety of medical, dental, nutritional applications, and/or as component(s) of cosmetics and other pharmacologicals depending on the purity of the collagen preparation and/or heterogeneity of jellyfish components allowed to remain in the preparations. The fibrous aggregates may be used directly for a variety of purposes or may be cross-linked to provide fibers having substantial structural integrity and macroscopic dimensions. Depending on the intended usc of the fibrous materials, the fibers and/or other resident natural components may be treated in a variety of ways to prepare various articles of manufacture.
An object of the present invention is to provide substantially pure marine invertebrate type V telopeptide containing collagen.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a cosmetic composition containing marine invertebrate type V telopeptide containing collagen.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a cosmetic cream composition containing marine invertebrate type V telopeptide containing collagen.
An object of the present invention is to prov
BioScience Consultants, L.L.C.
Low Christopher S. F.
Matney, Jr W. Jackson
Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy LLP
Mohamed Abdel A
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