Norman
Allan
| Norman
Allan | |||
collagin
rough draft | ||
here are fibrocytes Fi, collagin fibres CF, and a red blood cell Er for scale in loose connective tissue | ||
Each of the chains is approximately 1000 amino acid units in length, with glycine recurring regularly every third unit and hydroxyproline and proline (how often?) | ||
it is arranged in a loose weave in loose
connective tissue | ||
(specimens for electronmicrography are frozen and broken open, I think.) | ||
 | ||
 Collagen,
a fibrous protein, is a polar polymer,and shows rhythmic patterning at many levels.
It is itself piezoelectric. Ignoring the wealth of internal patterning in the
molecules, we see between molecules, and you'll need to look at the illustration
to understand this, we see a precise axial register of the molecules such that
each is displaced from all its neighbours by 0, 1D, 2D, 3D, or 4D periods, where
D = 1/4.4 of the molecular length. As shown in the figure right, this leaves a
"hole zone" into which the apatite crystals fit snugly. The side-to-side
lattice, and hence the manner of packing of molecules in three dimensions, was
still a mystery as of my day in the library. This much is known: the minuscule
apatite chips are arranged in a metacrystal on piezoelectric wires, and bone is
a crystal of crystals. | ||
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| so depending on how you stack it (and pack it with hylouronic acid and calcium phosphate gem hard crystal chips) collagen is like spandex or rope or bone. | ||
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collagin
is the primary structural protien outside the cell, secreted by fibrocytes.
or
arranged in ropes in tendons