Type IX collagen, a quantitatively minor collagenous component of cartilage, is known to be associated with and covalently cross-linked to type II collagen fibrils in chick and bovine cartilage. Type IX collagen molecules have also been shown to form covalent cross-links with each other in bovine cartilage. In the present study we demonstrate by structural analysis and location of cross-linking...

Reduction of reconstituted native type collagen fibrils with sodium borohydride produced a firmly cross-linked polymer as determined by solubility, thermal shrinkage and dissolution, and renaturation studies, and by examination of the denatured protein by ultracentrifugation, gel filtration, polyacrylamide electrophoresis, and carboxymethyl cellulose chromatography. Maximum reduction occurred w...

Collagen is a protein material with intriguing mechanical properties - it is highly elastic, shows large fracture strength and plays a crucial role in making Nature's structural materials tough. Collagen based tissues consist of collagen fibrils, each of which is composed out of a staggered array of ultra-long tropocollagen molecules extending to several hundred nanometers. Albeit the macroscop...