Glassy state of native collagen fibril

• Main Authors: Gevorkian, S. G, Allahverdyan, A. E, Gevorgyan, D. S, Hu, Chin-Kun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 04-11-2010
• Subjects: Physics - Soft Condensed Matter; Quantitative Biology - Biomolecules
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1011.1070

Our micromechanical experiments show that at physiological temperatures type
I collagen fibril has several basic features of the glassy state. The
transition out of this state [softening transition] essentially depends on the
speed of heating v, e.g., for v=1 C/min it occurs around 70 C and is displayed
by a peak of the internal friction and decreasing Young's modulus. The
softening transition decreases by 45 C upon decreasing the heating speed to
v=0.1 C/min. For temperatures 20-30 C the native collagen fibril demonstrates
features of mechanical glassines at oscillation frequencies 0.1-3 kHz; in
particular, the internal friction has a sharp maximum as a function of the
frequency. This is the first example of biopolymer glassines at physiological
temperatures, because well-known glassy features of DNA and globular proteins
are seen only for much lower temperatures (around 200 K).