What is soluble collagen?

Collagen is a very popular beauty substance. It has a very unique effect on regulating people's skin and can make the skin whiten and firm in a short period of time. Therefore, people who like beauty regard collagen as a necessary beauty improver. There are many types of collagen, among which soluble collagen is a more popular one. What is soluble collagen? Let’s take a look at the explanation below.

Soluble collagen is generally white, transparent, unbranched fibrils with a quaternary structure. The monomer of collagen is tropocollagen.

For a long time, people have always regarded collagen as a molecule. In fact, collagen encompasses a wide range of molecules whose main structure is the same triple helical configuration. It was not until the 1970s that people gradually realized the diversity of collagen in different tissues, which is genetically different. To date, 18 genetically distinct collagen types have been defined, consisting of 32 polypeptide chains with their own genetic characteristics. Their distribution within tissues has a certain tissue specificity. For example, tendons mainly contain type I collagen, cartilage mainly contains type II collagen, while the interstitium of blood vessel walls, skin and various soft tissues or organs contains both type I and type III collagen. The only difference is that the proportion of these two types of collagen is different in different organs. Since type I collagen accounts for 90% of the total collagen in the body, it has been the most studied and widely used.

Collagen is the most abundant and widely distributed protein in animals. It is mainly distributed in connective tissue. It is very important for the formation of animal and human skin, blood vessels, bones, teeth and cartilage, and is the main material basis of these connective tissues. 70% of the total weight of the skin is collagen, cartilage is almost entirely collagen, and normal bones also contain 80% collagen (in bones, the function of collagen is mainly to use its reticular structure to adhere calcium, phosphorus, minerals and other components to form bone). Hydrolyzed collagen is the enzymatic degradation of collagen into small molecular weight polypeptides with a molecular weight of less than 10,000, especially those below 3,000.