Kinetics Analyzer3

The capacity of the recombinant collagen to form supra-molecular structures was studied using SLS crystallites, an artificial mode of molecular packing in which polyanions such as ATP cross-bridge positively charged collagen molecules to induce lateral register aggregation. SLS crystallites were obtained with recombinant collagen that displayed a characteristic asymmetric cross-banding pattern after positive staining (Fig. 4). Their average length (261 ± 11 nm) corresponded to that of single molecules and was consistent with the lengths of SLS crystallites formed from bovine heterotrimer and homotrimer (271 ± 10 and 276 ± 7 nm, respectively). Moreover, alignment of all three forms of SLS crystallites revealed an overall similarity in the banding pattern indicating an identical distribution of polar residues (Fig. 4D).