Collagen triple helix staggering

Figure 1 The collagen triple helix, (a) Colored by element C (green), O (red), N (blue), S (yellow) (b) colored by chains and (c) colored by Gly (red), Xaa (yellow), and Yaa (white) positions. The modeis were buiit using PyMOL with the type iii coiiagen model peptide (PDB accession number 3DMW). Glycine residues in every third position are located on the inside of the triple helix. Each chain is staggered by one residue to accommodate the Gly in the center of the triple helix.

Once this domain is removed, refolding of the three collagen polypeptides to the correctly staggered molecules is very difficult or impossible. The folding reaction from three polypeptides into a triple helix is affected by the concentration of the peptides. For the kinetic refolding analysis of triple helical model... 

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