Crosslinking in collagen (rat tail tendon)
D. G. Kaplan , A. B. Furtek , J. J. Aklonis

Synopsis

Mechanical creep experiments have been carried out on swollen denatured tail tendons from rats of various ages. Even though covalent crosslinks may be present in these tendons, our results show that there are not enough effective crosslinks to result in a network structure capable of exhibiting equilibrium elastic behavior in mechanical experiments. Tendons with additional synthetically incorporated crosslinks clearly show such equilibrium behavior. This being the situation, it is doubtful that the natural crosslinks in collagenous materials are an important influence on mechanical strength of tendon as has been claimed.

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