Molecular species of collagen in pectoral fin cartilage of skate (Raja kenojei)

Soluble collagen was prepared from the pectoral fin cartilage of skate (Raja kenojei) by limited pepsin digestion. It was fractionated into three fractions by differential salt precipitation. All collagen fractions were further purified by phosphocellulose column chromatography and were characterized with respect to solubility, mobility on SDS–PAGE, peptide map, and amino acid composition. The resultant data indicate the distribution of three molecular species of collagen, corresponding to Type I and II as major collagens and Type XI as a minor collagen, respectively.