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Collagen

Collagen is the fibrous protein that contributes to the unique physiological functions of connected tissues in the skin, tendon, bones, and cartilage. Collagen is an essential and major component of muscles, tendons, cartilage, ligaments, joints and blood vessels in the human body. There are three main types of collagen: I, II and III. Types I and III are primarily found in skin, tendon and bone. Type II is found predominantly in articular cartilage. The cartilage of the joints is called hyaline cartilage which is found not only on all surface of bones that move (articular cartilage) but also in the nose, larynx, ribs and trachea. This cartilage consists of 70% water, about 10% collagen Type II, and the rest is various protein and specialized complex sugars, called proteoglycans. Type I, II, and III collagens are all formed in the organism as procollagen molecules, comprising N-terminal and C-terminal propeptide sequences, which are attached to the core collagen molecules. Collagen molecules contain approximately 33% glycine, 22% proline, 11% hydroxyproline, and 0.7% hydroxylysine. From a nutritional standpoint, collagen is devoid of tryptophan, low in methionine, cysteine and tyrosine. Collagen contains two uncommon amino acids, 4-hydroxyproline and 5-hydroxylysine. Collagen is a well known biomaterial having many uses in medicine, including, for example, use as a hemostat, use in soft tissue augmentation, use for treatment of urinary incontinence, and use as a drug delivery platform. Collagen is useful in various pharmaceutical applications and as an implant material for soft tissue defects. The collagen useful for implant materials may be broadly categorized into xenograft collagen and allograft collagen. Selecting the appropriate collagen materials may present challenges as there is a need to balance strength and durability of the implant with reducing immunogenicity and promoting soft tissue ingrowth. Among the various materials used as medical materials, animal collagen has excellent bioaffinity and histocompatibility, low antigenicity, has the action of promoting host cell differentiation and growth, has a hemostatic action, and is completely degraded and absorbed in the body. Jellyfish proteins consist almost entirely of collagen. Analysis of the amino acid composition of mesogloea hydrolysate showed that glycine is the most abundant amino acid, and that hydroxyproline and hydroxylysine, which are characteristic of collagen, are present. Tryptophan is almost totally absent. Thus, mesogloea contain proteins belonging to the collagen group.

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