Identification and Computational Analysis of Chicken Alpha-1 Collagen Sequences

Collagen is a protein that is found in cartilage, bone and other tissues in animals and humans. People utilize collagen from chicken for medicine. It is used to treat joint pain associated with many types of arthritis and surgery, with back pain, neck pain, and pain subsequent injury. So far, 26 genetically distinct collagen types have been described. However, there is not sufficient information to know if chicken collagen is safe or what the side effects might be. Other collagen products, such as bovine collagen and gelatin, have caused allergic reactions whereas chicken collagen has low amount of allergic reactions. It is recently found that collagen alpha-1 is involved in osteogenesis imperfecta phenotype in cattle, but there is no such type of information in case of chicken. So, attempting to figure out information about their structural features chicken alpha-1 collagen sequences are carried out and analyzed. This investigation reports a comparative analysis and characterization of the alpha-1 chain of chicken collagen sequences using different computational tools. Amino acid composition, physico-chemical, secondary structural, functional and phylogenetic classification were done, based on which, Alpha-1 (XIV) collagen, Collagen alpha-1(XIV) chain precursor and Collagen type XII alpha-1, which belong to the Fibril Associated Collagens with Interrupted Triple helices (FACIT) collagen family, can be recognized as potential players in diseased conditions, because of certain unusual properties such as very high aliphatic index, low percentage of Glycine and Proline residues and their proximity in evolutionary history. These collagen molecules might be play crucial role in cosmetics, foods on top of in medical industry.