Functional and bioactive properties of chitosan from Indian major carp scale

Abstract

Chitin is the most important natural polysaccharide after cellulose; however, it is not widely used for industrial application because of its insolubility in many solvents. The present study utilizes Indian major carps (Labeo rohita, Catla catla, and Cirrhinus mrigala) scale to extract chitin and prepare chitosan by a sequence of chemical processes involving demineralization, deproteinization, and deacetylation. The extracted chitosan is characterized by different analytical techniques viz. UV-Vis spectroscopy, FT-IR, TGA, and XRD, and SEM analysis reveals that fish scale waste are good source of chitosan. Compositional analysis of fish scale waste was done by standard methods which reveal that the extracted chitosan was having 0.691% moisture content, 0.53% ash, 109% fat-binding assay (FBC), 104% water-binding assay (WBC) indicating the value depend upon the source of origin and optimization of chemical process of extraction. The antibacterial activity of chitosan against Aeromonas hydrophila, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa was evaluated by agar well diffusion method. The chitosan also exhibited DPPH scavenging along with anti-inflammatory and anticoagulant activity in a dose-dependent manner. The extracted chitosan also demonstrated preservation and seed germination activities. The result of the present study strongly supports the use of chitosan in pharmaceutical, food industry, and agro-based industries.