Three-dimensional organization of collagen fibres in tendon.

Electron microscopic observations are presented on thin sections of excised chicken breast tendon following the introduction and diffusion of aqueous solutions of heavy metal salts. The dark banded regions of the collagen fibrils are seen to be in near-perfect register throughout the diameter of each fibril and, in many cases, to be continuous across the intervening ground substance. Clusters of uranyl ions form well-defined chains extending across the interfibrillar space between neighbouring fibrils, a distance of several hundred nanometres. It is suggested that the high degree of organization characteristic of collagen fibrils in tissue may perhaps be a property not only of the protein but also of the ground substance in which it is embedded, the fibres merely rendering visible a lattice pattern of their surroundings to which they have conformed.