Vertebrate skin type I collagen: comparison of bony fishes with lamprey and calf.

1. Characterization of Type I collagen alpha chains, alpha 1 and alpha 2, in the skin tissues of carp and common mackerel revealed a marked interspecies difference in CNBr-peptide maps of the alpha 2 chains, suggesting the hypervariability during evolution of the alpha 2 chains relative to the alpha 1 chains. 2. When compared with calf Type I collagen, lower vertebrate Type I collagens derived from these bony fishes as well as from lamprey were found to exhibit a higher degree of structural similarity between their alpha 1 and alpha 2 chains.