[Melting of ordered structures in denatured collagen depending on biological age by differential scanning...

Using the differential scanning calorimetry we were able for the first time to establish the correlation between the biological age of the collagen tissue (rat tail tendon, age from 20 days to 24 months) and the melting parameters of gels, which are formed after the collagen denaturation. We have found that the half-width of the gel melting curves delta T1/2, as well as the ratio of the gel melting heat to the denaturation heat Qm/Qd are sensitive to the biological age of the tissue. The gel melting temperature Tm, in distinction to the denaturation temperature, was found to be not sensitive to the age but entirely dependent on the gel formation temperature. As it was experimentally demonstrated the above mentioned correlations can be observed only at well characterized thermal prehistory of samples and strictly fixed regime of gel formation.