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Collagen is the most abundant protein found in mammals and it exhibits a low immunogenicity, high biocompatibility and biodegradability when compared with others natural polymers. For this reason, it has been explored for the development of biologically instructive biomaterials with applications for tissue substitution and regeneration. Marine origin collagen has been pursued as an alternative to the more common bovine and porcine origins. This study focused on squid (Teuthoidea: Cephalopoda), particularly the Antarctic squid Kondakovia longimana and the Sub-Antarctic squid Illex argentinus as potential collagen sources. In this study, collagen has been isolated fromthe skins of the squids using acid-based and pepsin-based protocols, with the higher yield being obtained from I. argentinus in the presence of pepsin. The produced collagen has been characterized in terms of physicochemical properties, evidencing an amino acid profile similar to the one of calf collagen, but exhibiting a less preserved structure, with hydrolyzed portions and a lower melting temperature. Pepsin-soluble collagen isolated fromI. argentinus was selected for further evaluation of biomedical potential, exploring its incorporation on poly-ε-caprolactone (PCL) 3D printed scaffolds for the development of hybrid scaffolds for tissue engineering, exhibiting hierarchical features. ; This work was partially funded by ERDF through POCTEP Project 0687_NOVOMAR_1_P and by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement on ERC-2012-ADG 20120216-321266 (ComplexiTE). The Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) is also acknowledged for post-doctoral fellowships of JMS (SFRH/BPD/70230/2010) and RPP (SFRH/BPD/101886/2014), financed by POPH/FSE, and FCT Investigator grant of JX (IF/00616/2013). The authors also want to thank Dr. Julio Maroto (Fundación CETMAR, Spain) for the kind offer of the samples of skins of I. argentinus, to Dr. Dario Fassini for the ...

The high prevalence of bone defects has become a worldwide problem. Despite the significant amount of research on the subject, the available therapeutic solutions lack efficiency. Autografts, the most common used approaches to treat bone defects have limitations such as donor site morbidity, pain and lack of donor site. Marine resources emerge as an attractive alternative to extract bioactive compounds for further use in bone tissue engineering approaches. On one hand they can be isolated from by-products, at low costs, creating value from products that are considered waste for the fish transformation industry. One the other hand, religious constraints will be avoided. We isolated two marine origin materials, collagen from shark skin (Prionace glauca) and calcium phosphates from teeth of two different shark species (Prionace glauca and Isurus oxyrinchus), and further proposed to mix them to produce 3D composite structures for hard tissue applications. Two crosslinking agents, EDC/NHS and HMDI, were tested to enhance scaffoldsâ properties, with EDC/NHS resulting in better properties. The characterization of the structures showed that the developed composites could support attachment and proliferation of osteoblast-like cells. A promising scaffold for the engineering of bone tissue is thus proposed, based on a strategy of marine by-products valorisation. ; This work was funded by INTERREG under the POCTEP Project 0687_NOVOMAR_1_P and the Atlantic Area Transnational Cooperation Programme Project MARMED (2011-1/164), as well as by European Union FP7 under the project POLARIS (REGPOT-CT2012-316331). ...