Chemistry of the collagen cross-links. Isolation and characterization of two intermediate intermolecular cross-links in collagen.

This paper describes the isolation from reduced collagen of two new amino acids believed to be involved, in their non-reduced form, as intermolecular cross-links stabilizing the collagen fibre. The reduction of intact collagen fibrils with tritiated sodium borohydride was found to stabilize the aldehyde-mediated cross-links to acid hydrolysis and thus allowed their location and isolation from acid hydrolysates on an automatic amino acid analyser. Comparison of the radioactive elution patterns from the autoanalyser of collagen treated in various ways before reduction permitted a preliminary classification of the peaks into cross-link precursors, intramolecular and intermolecular cross-links. The techniques employed to isolate the purified components on a large scale and to identify them structurally are described in detail. Two labile intermolecular cross-links were isolated in their reduced forms, one of which was identified by high-resolution mass spectrometry as N(in)-(5-amino-5-carboxypentyl)hydroxylysine. The structure of this compound was confirmed by chemical synthesis. The cross-link precursor alpha-aminoadipic delta-semialdehyde was isolated in its reduced form, in-hydroxynorleucine, together with its acid degradation product in-chloronorleucine. A relatively stable intermolecular cross-link was isolated and partially characterized by mass spectrometry as an aldol resulting from the reaction of the delta-semialdehyde derived from lysine and hydroxylysine.