The effects of an electric field on soluble collagen

Electric birefringence decay curves of collagen suspended in aqueous buffered media were plotted as functions of pulse width and amplitude. They were then resolved into two components by means of an analog simulator. When these data were combined with the results of repeated pulsing, it was shown that an electric field promotes aggregation of collagen, although the variety of aggregate sizes falls within a fixed range. Observations of electric birefringence of dissolved collagen preparations as a function of ionic strengths tend to indicate that the bonding that occurs in an electric field is electrostatic.