Abstract
The development of fluorescent pigments in aging human collagen has been observed, but neither the source of these compounds nor their nature has been described. Recently two distinct fluorophores were isolated from aging insoluble human collagen rich tissue following a sequence of proteolytic digestions and chromatographic separations. Using the videofluormeter, which monitors the fluorescence intensity of a sample as a function of several excitation and emission wavelengths, the fluorescence of the collagen rich tissue at various stages of the separation process was analyzed to determine the number of fluorescent components in each of the samples and estimate their fluorescence spectra. The analysis indicated that the isolated fluorophores were indeed single-component samples and that the insoluble collagen-rich fraction contains two major fluorophores whose spectra are consistent with the spectra of the isolated compounds.
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