1. Collagen

Collagen was one kind of protein mainly existing in human skin, skeleton, cartilage, teeth, tendon, ligament and blood vessel, and it was a very important structural protein to support and to protect organs and body. Collagen was the most protein in human body and its content was 25~33% of total proteins and 80% of the skin composition which was almost equal to 6% of bodyweight.

Collagen family included 19 kinds of collagens and over 10 kinds of collagen-likes. According to its function and the characters, it could be classified into fibrous collagen, net structural collagen, cross-membrane collagen, newly collagen and the protein with tri-helix structure but no being defined etc.. Each structure of collagen adapted to its function, there were several different collagens in the same tissue but one was primary usually.

Four main collagens and their properties:

2. Collagen related to cosmetic and beauty

Beautiful appearance needed interior support, collagen was the principal supporter. With the development of science and technology, people's understanding was improved gradually, so the cosmetic roles of collagen were widely noticed and approved in different countries and races.

Collagen was the abundant protein in animal skin or organ, main composed of glycine, proline and hydroxyproline, it was very important to human body. As for cosmetic, it could maintain water, defend wrinkles, resist radiation, and keep skin elasticity. The reduction of collagen's content would result in many syndromes, such as wrinkles, coarse skin, black stains, freckles, black eye socket, eye dropsy, baldheaded, face blister, acne, etc.

With age increasing, the content of collagen in human body would decrease little by little, especially in dermal collagen aged with cells, which made a series aging phenomena. In addition, some reasons as overwork, ultraviolet, excessive dryness and inappropriate tearing skin would destroy the structure of collagen, then the collagen fiber lost it's function and couldn't preserve the water in skin, so the skin looked wrinkled, dry and colorless.

Not only men but also women couldn't escape the changes noted above, and women appeared more serious. In fact, these changes began from the twenties, but they were not evident and easy to be ignored. Almost at 23~25 years old, we could find wrinkle in the face. some little wrinkles appeared around eye corners. Meantime, little wrinkles would expand and deepen with aging. So we should supplement collagen in time.

The changes of collagen in dermal were from “intrastrand links” of the new tissues to “interstrand links” and finally to “intermolecular links”. Meanwhile, the physicochemical properties of collagen changed from the water soluble of the new tissues to insolubility of the old. It was found that the older the animal is, less the total content of collagen , but more.the proportion of the insoluble collagen . So it was the key to supply the soluble collagen. At the beginning of collagen decreasing, the measures should be taken because skin could recover if collagen was supplemented effectively, or else skin couldn't comeback. Therefore the beautification with collagen has been popular, and the functions of collagen considered by people were that:

1.     getting rid of wrinkles

2.     keeping water

3.     against UV radiation

4.     resisting aging

5.     repairing defected skin

6.     removing pock, acne, spot

7.     dispelling black eye sockets, eye dropping

8.     detergent

At present, there were many collagen products in markets, but their quality was uneven. Some were used for injection, some for oral, the others for external, but all of them were made from animal collagen. Firstly, because animal collagen was water insoluble, the final water soluble products extracted by any way weren't the essential collagen and they lost the cosmetic function; acid- solved collagen product could led to side -effect to skin or body, secondly, animal collagen had the fetal drawback----the potential risk of  virus, finally, animal collagen could be little absorbed  and it was not easy to unify and to stabilized the product's standard and quality.

The invention of Human-like Collagen was a great breakthrough in collagen field and cosmetic and beauty. It got rid of the shortcomings of animal collagen and maintained the initial activity, and it could widely apply in cosmetic and beauty fields.

3. Human-like Collagen

(1). Human-like Collagen

Human-like Collage was a kind of macromolecular protein with tri-helix structure produced by high cell-density cultivation of recombinant Escherichia coli containing human collagen's cDNA transcribed reversely from mRNA.

(2). The activity of Human-like Collagen collagen

A. bio-absorption

B. good cell-adhesion

C. mini-immunogenicity and  neovascularization

D. promoting the formation of epithelial cell

E. biocompatibility

F. absorption water

G. against UV radiation.

H. repairing defected skin

I. removing pock, acne, spot

J. dispelling black eye sockets, eye dropping

(3). The innovation of Human-like Collagen

A. Easy processed: Human-like Collagen remained the initial functions of collagen and had some new characters because of its structure, such as reversible colloid with heat and easy processed without molecular reduction and so on. However, animal collagen extracted from animal tissues was insoluble except for the molecular weight reduction.

B. free of virus: the fetal shortcomings of animal collagen restricted the application is it's harmful virus, but Human-like Collagen made up these drawbacks .Collagen (extracted from animal skin, tendons and hides ) is potential risk in virus with  the potential to cause side-effect and the potential for the contamination of bovine collagen with the fatal mad cow disease.

C. Water solubility: Human-like Collagen could solve in water, which was another advantage to compete with animal collagen. It was different from hydrolyzed collagen produced by hydrolyzing animal collagen to short peptide linkage with a lower  molecular weight.

D. Mini-immunogenicity: Human-like collagen was expressed by human collagen gene in host, so mmunogenicity could be lessened much by compared with animal collagen after it entered into human body.

4. The Cosmetic Effects of Human-like Collagen

A. Removing wrinkles

Skin wrinkles resulted from losing body collagen, in addition, fatigue, UV radiation, excessive dryness and tearing skin would destroy the structure of collagen and finally induced wrinkle's formation. At this time, collagen should be supplied to form new collagen. Human-like Collagen could be absorbed easily by body, and it supplemented the loss quickly and furbished the skin.

B. Keeping water

The tissue of Human-like Collagen was different from that of animal collagen and could make skin high elastic by reservation a lot of water. Human-like Collagen could absorb more 30 times water than its weight. Differing from the conventional composition keeping water, Human-like Collagen netted with water. In addition, being smeared on skin, it turned into a soft protein membrane after drying to smooth skin and to shoal wrinkles.

C.  Repairing function

After being absorbed by human body, Human-like Collagen turned into collagen of body itself, which formed the normal connective tissues to supplement and repair the destroyed old skin to renew their elasticity.

D. Against UV radiation

Human-like Collagen was the natural barrier to resist UV radiation, it could protect skin from damage from UV radiation, acid-alkali and the other positions by forming a very thin film on skin, so it could used as an active composition in cosmetic product. It was proved that 0.1% collagen could resist radiation strongly.

E.  Slowing aging

Human-like Collagen could make into oral capsule and oral liquid. Eating collagen had been a fashion to protect skin in America and Europe . Oral collagen was more effective than external use. All people knew that eating pig's feet and skin containing full of collagen could beautify, but Human-like Collagen had more advantages than that from pig's feet and skin, such as high purity, no cholesterol, small molecular weight, easy digestion and so on.. In addition, eating too much animal feet and skin easily led to fatness and even cholesterol increasing.

Another, Human-like Collagen could be applied in shampoo to increase hair's flexibility and furbish hairs. In fact, the beauty effects of collagen were comprehensive and it influenced thoroughly the external appearance of the whole skin.

6. The different effects between Human-like Collagen and animal collage in cosmetic and beauty

(1) No virus dangers and no worry

At present, all countries in the world notified the virus invasion to human body from animal products and issued laws to inhibit producing, importing and selling the animal products. And the cosmetic products made from animal or human were in restriction too. Human-like Collagen was produced by gene-engineering and avoided radically virus danger.

(2) Mini- immunogenicity and biocompatibility

Animal collagen had virus danger and immunogenicity to human body, but Human-like Collagen was human source collagen and had good biocompatibility.

(3) Water solubility and good processed function

The most of native collagen from animal was insoluble, the native soluble collagen was very expansive, some so called native soluble animal collagen was hydrolyzed collagen, not the real and integrated collagen. The beauty effects of hydrolyzed collagen and insoluble collagen were limited. Human-like Collagen was water soluble and could be made into ointment and detergent at promise of keeping its intrinsic effects.

(4) Special structure and evident effects

The structures of animal collagen and Human-like Collagen were trihelix and tri-repeated helix respectively, the former was not  easy to be processed, but the latter had good flexibility and could remain longer than the former after entering in human body, so Human-like Collagen could keep the elasticity of skin.

(5) Good quality

Animal collagen's quality were difficult to be unified. It was very easy to ensure the unified norms and steady quality of Human-like collagen by using biotechnology.

7. The different of technology and performance between Human-like Collagen and animal collagen

9. Suggestion for custom to add Human-like Collagen

Human-like Collagen could made into paste, latex and many kinds of cosmetic products, it also could easily mixed with other materials. In general, the recommendatory dosage was 1~10%, and the user could determined the optimum proportion by experiences according to special requirements and properties of the other materials to reach the best function.

10. Storage and package