In field of regenerative medicine, collagen is one of the most widely used natural polymers for electrospinning nanofibers. The publication by J Matthews et al on electrospinning of collagen and his observation of the 67 nm band on the nanofibers as evidence that the collagen is not de-natured through the electrospinning process certainly convinced researchers of the integrity of the electrospun collagen nanofibers. However, very few, if any, results that substantiate the evidence by J Matthews et al has led to suspicion that collagen, after the electrospinning process, has turned into gelatin, a much cheaper material that collagen.

To prove that collagen has retained its structural integrity instead of turning into gelatin requires several tests that many labs may not be equipped to perform nor is it central to the researcher's research objective. Most researchers are satisfied that incorporation or use of collagen showed better cell response on the scaffold. Given little forthcoming evidence [Huang et al 2001] that support the result by J Matthews, a study was conducted by Zeugolis et al to find out whether electrospun collagen still retains its structure or has it been turned into gelatin. Their result failed to find evidence that the collagen supramolecule remains intact and their conclusion is the collagen has turned to gelatin [Zeugolis et al 2008]. They attribute the cause of collagen denaturing to the flourinated solvents commonly used to dissolve collagen for electrospinning. Given this new evidence, is it still worth the price paid for collagen to electrospin or perhaps gelatin will be a much cheaper option?

Despite the lack of evidence on collagen integrity post electrospinning, a study comparing the cell response to "collagen" and gelatin electrospun nanofibers actually showed that cells response more positively on "collagen" electrospun nanofibers than gelatin [Jha et al 2011]. Given this result, it may make little differences to some researchers whether or not collagen denatures since their objective is to encourage cell adhesion and proliferation. If "denatured" electrospun collagen performs better than electrospun gelatin, they will continue to use it as there are benefits to it.

While there may be debates on whether electrospun "collagen" can still be called collagen, its significance really depends on the research objective. Medical practitioner and applied science may not be bothered too much by this question as it is the end results that matters to them. Attempts have been made to spin collagen nanofibers while maintaining its integrity [Foltran et al 2008]. Further investigation into this may give rise to better medical or research results and in this aspect, it is worth looking into developing simply way of fabricating it.