Extraction of soluble collagen and its feasibility

Authors: Ning Wang YaoWu Hu LiangLiang Hou RuiPing Yang GuoDing Song ChangSui Wang

Publish Date: 2014/02/11

Volume: 57, Issue: 5, Pages: 1039-1047

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Abstract

In current palaeodietary research gelatinization is the main method to extract insoluble collagen ISC from ancient bones However the degradation products of ISC ie soluble collagen SC is often neglected and abandoned In this work we try to separate the extracts of ancient bones using gel chromatography and compare the contents of carbon and nitrogen atomic C/N ratio and stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic values of the extracts from three peaks to determine which peak can be attributed to SC At last the potential application of SC in palaeodietary research is discussed based on the comparison of stable isotopic values between ISC and SC Among the three peaks the second with the retention time between 175 min and 275 min had the most broad peak shape indicating that the molecular weights of proteins collected were most variable Besides the contents of carbon and nitrogen and atomic C/N ratio of extracts in this peak were closest to the corresponding ISC Based on the above we conclude that the extract in second peak is SC More important the δ 13C and δ 15N values of ISC and SC are very similar For ISC and SC with atomic C/N ratios within the normal range 29–36 the mean difference of δ 13C value was only 03±02‰ n=2 while δ 15N value was 06±01‰ n=2 Although the atomic C/N ratios of some SC are slightly beyond the normal range the mean differences of δ 13C and δ 15N values were still only 04±01‰ and 03±0‰ n=2 respectively These isotopic differences are quite below the isotope fractionation in one trophic level δ 13C values of 1‰–15‰ and δ 15N values of 3‰–5‰ suggesting that SC had great application potentials in palaeodietary research

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