Hydrolyzed Collagen Induces an Anti-Inflammatory Response That Induces Proliferation of Skin Fibroblast and Keratinocytes

Collagen-based products are found in different pharmaceuticals, medicine, food, and cosmetics products for a wide variety of applications. However, its use to prevent or improve the health of skin is growing dizzyingly. Therefore, this study investigated whether collagen peptides could induce fibroblast and keratinocyte proliferation and activation beyond reducing an inflammatory response induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Human skin fibroblasts (CCD-1072Sk) and human keratinocytes (hKT-nh-skp-KT0026) were seeded at a concentration of 5 × 104 cells/mL. LPS (10 ng/mL) and three doses of collagen peptides (2.5 mg/mL, 5 mg/mL, 10 mg/mL) were used. The readout parameters were cell proliferation; expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS); expression of pro-collagen-1α by fibroblasts; and secretion of interleukin-1β (IL-1β), interleukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin-8 (IL-8), tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), transforming growth factor β (TGF-β), and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) by both cell types. The results demonstrated that all doses of collagen supplementation induced increased proliferation of both human fibroblasts (p < 0.01) and human keratinocytes (p < 0.001), while only the dose of 10 mg/mL induced an increased expression of pro-collagen-1α by fibroblasts. Similarly, only the dose of 10 mg/mL reduced LPS-induced iNOS expression in fibroblasts (p < 0.05) and keratinocytes (p < 0.01). In addition, collagen supplementation reduced the LPS-induced IL-1β (p < 0.05), IL-6 (p < 0.001), IL-8 (p < 0.01), and TNF-α (p < 0.05), and increased the TGF-β and VEGF expression in fibroblasts. Furthermore, collagen supplementation reduced the LPS-induced IL-1β (p < 0.01), IL-6 (p < 0.01), IL-8 (p < 0.01), and TNF-α (p < 0.001), and increased the TGF-β (p < 0.05) and VEGF (p < 0.05) expression in keratinocytes. In conclusion, collagen peptides were found to induce fibroblast and keratinocyte proliferation and pro-collagen-1α expression, involving increased expression of TGF-β and VEGF, as well as the suppression of an inflammatory response induced by LPS.