Collagens at a glance

Collagens are a large family of triple helical proteins that are widespread throughout the body and are important for a broad range of functions, including tissue scaffolding, cell adhesion, cell migration, cancer, angiogenesis, tissue morphogenesis and tissue repair. Collagen is best known as the principal tensile element of vertebrate tissues such as tendon, cartilage, bone and skin, where it occurs in the extracellular matrix as elongated fibrils. Collagen is also well known for its location in basement membranes – for example, in the kidney glomerulus, where it functions in molecular filtration. However, the identification of transmembrane collagens on the surfaces of a wide variety of cells and collagens…