Assessment of Collagen in Translational Models of Lung Research

The extracellular matrix (ECM) plays an important role in lung health and disease. Collagen is the main component of the lung ECM, widely used for the establishment of in vitro and organotypic models of lung disease, and as scaffold material of general interest for the field of lung bioengineering. Collagen also is the main readout for fibrotic lung disease, where collagen composition and molecular properties are drastically changed and ultimately result in dysfunctional "scarred" tissue. Because of the central role of collagen in lung disease, quantification, determination of molecular properties, and three-dimensional visualization of collagen is important for both development and characterization of translational models of lung research. In this chapter, we provide a comprehensive overview on the various methodologies currently available for quantification and characterization of collagen including their detection principles, advantages, and disadvantages.