Osmotic pressure induced tensile forces in tendon collagen
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Masic-2015-Osmotic Pressure.pdf
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Author(s)
Masic, Admir
Bertinetti, Luca
Schuetz, Roman
Chang, Shu-Wei
Metzger, Till Hartmut
Fratzl, Peter
Buehler, Markus J
Date Issued
January 2015
Journal
Nature Communications
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Citation
Masic, Admir, Luca Bertinetti, Roman Schuetz, Shu-Wei Chang, Till Hartmut Metzger, Markus J. Buehler, and Peter Fratzl. “Osmotic Pressure Induced Tensile Forces in Tendon Collagen.” Nature Communications 6 (January 22, 2015): 5942.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Water is an important component of collagen in tendons, but its role for the function of this load-carrying protein structure is poorly understood. Here we use a combination of multi-scale experimentation and computation to show that water is an integral part of the collagen molecule, which changes conformation upon water removal. The consequence is a shortening of the molecule that translates into tensile stresses in the range of several to almost 100 MPa, largely surpassing those of about 0.3 MPa generated by contractile muscles. Although a complete drying of collagen would be relevant for technical applications, such as the fabrication of leather or parchment, stresses comparable to muscle contraction already occur at small osmotic pressures common in biological environments. We suggest, therefore, that water-generated tensile stresses may play a role in living collagen-based materials such as tendon or bone.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms6942
