How does a skin fibroblast make type I collagen fibers?

We now have an impressive amount of information about several steps in the synthesis of type I collagen fibers by skin fibroblasts: (a) the transcription of the genes for pro alpha 1(I) and pro alpha 2(I) polypeptide chains; (b) the processing of the initial RNA transcripts of the genes to mature mRNAs; (c) translation of the mRNAs to prepro alpha 1(I) and prepro alpha 2(I) chains; (d) processing of the prepro alpha 1(I) and prepro alpha 2(I) chains to procollagen; and (e) the further processing of procollagen in collagen fibers. The speed with which we are currently developing this information about collagen and comparable information about other constituents of skin suggests that skin may well be the first human organ which we fully understand.