any of a group of proteins that are components of whitish, rather inelastic fibres of great tensile strength present in tendon and ligament and in the connective tissue layer of the skin—dermis—and in dentin and cartilage. Collagenous fibres occur in bundles up to several hundred microns wide, and the individual fibres can be separated into fine fibrils; the fibrils, furthermore, consist of even finer filaments with a periodic banded structure.
Collagen is a scleroprotein, being one of a family of proteins marked by low solubility in water. Collagen is especially rich in the amino acid glycine, and it is the only protein known to contain a substantial proportion of hydroxyproline. Upon exposure to boiling water, collagen is converted to gelatin.
Link to this article and share the full text with the readers of your Web site or blog-post.
If you think a reference to this article on "collagen" will enhance your Web site,
blog-post, or any other web-content, then feel free to link to this article,
and your readers will gain full access to the full article, even if they do not subscribe to our service.
You may want to use the HTML code fragment provided below.
We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.
Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.