Maturation of collagen Ketoimine cross-links by an alternative mechanism to pyridinoline formation in cartilage.

ABSTRACT: The tensile strength of fibrillar collagens depends on stable intermolecular cross-links formed through the lysyl oxidase mechanism. Such cross-links based on hydroxylysine aldehydes are particularly important in cartilage, bone, and other skeletal tissues. In adult cartilages, the mature cross-linking structures are trivalent pyridinolines, which form spontaneously from the initial divalent ketoimines. We examined whether this was the complete story or whether other ketoimine maturation products also form, as the latter are known to disappear almost completely from mature tissues. Denatured, insoluble, bovine articular cartilage collagen was digested with trypsin, and cross-linked peptides were isolated by copper chelation chromatography, which selects for their histidine-containing seque

SUBMITTER: Eyre DR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2878069 | biostudies-literature | 2010 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature