A synthetic model of collagen structure taken from bovine macrophage scavenger receptor.

A putative collagen structure from macrophage scavenger receptors binds to a wide range of ligands. In order to elucidate the ligand's binding mode, this collagen structure was constructed using short peptides. This was accomplished by the reaction of a tri-bromoacetylated branched peptide with a purified unprotected 25-residue peptide, which contained Cys, 4 repeats of triplet, Gly-Pro-Hyp, and 12 residues from the bovine of the N-terminus cross-linked tripeptide show that it forms a collagen structure below 10 degrees C and an extended structure at high temperature with a midpoint of 20 degrees C.