Hydroxyproline turnover in dermal collagen grafts in reconstituted skin wounds in the rat

Using donor skin labelled with tritiated hydroxyproline and proline, a comparative study has been made of hydroxyproline (and by extrapolation collagen) turnover in skin, dermal collagen and glutaraldehyde crosslinked dermal collagen grafts in unlabelled isogenic recipient rats. In contrast with non-crosslinked collagen and skin grafts, collagen grafts stabilized by crosslinking with 0.01% glutaraldehyde underwent little loss of original graft collagen and maintained their original collagen mass over a 22 week period. As the skin grafts acquired a similar amount of new collagen to that lost, they also maintained their original mass. However, the non-crosslinked collagen grafts showed only a small gain of new collagen and lost 57% of their original mass.