Complete primary structure of rainbow trout type I collagen consisting of α1(I)α2(I)α3(I) heterotrimers

The subunit compositions of skin and muscle type I collagens from rainbow trout were found to be alpha1(I)alpha2(I)alpha3(I) and [alpha1(I)](2)alpha2(I), respectively. The occurrence of alpha3(I) has been observed only for bonyfish. The skin collagen exhibited more susceptibility to both heat denaturation and MMP-13 digestion than the muscle counterpart; the former had a lower denaturation temperature by about 0.5 degreesC than the latter. The lower stability of skin collagen, however, is not due to the low levels of imino acids because the contents of Pro and Hyp were almost constant in both collagens. On the other hand, some cDNAs coding for the N-terminal and/or a part of triple-helical domains of pro alpha (I) chains were cloned from the cDNA library of rainbow trout fibroblasts. These cDNAs together with the previously cloned collagen cDNAs gave information about the complete primary structure of type I procollagen. The main triple-helical domain of each pro alpha (I) chain had 338 uninterrupted Gly-X-Y triplets consisting of 1014 amino acids and was unique in its high content of Gly-Gly doublets. In particular, the bonyfish-specific alpha (I) chain, pro alpha3(I) was characterized by the small number of Gly-Pro-Pro triplets, 19, and the large number of Gly-Gly doublets, 38, in the triple-helical domain, compared to 23 and 22, respectively, for pro alpha1(I). The small number of Gly-Pro-Pro and the large number of Gly-Gly in pro alpha3(I) was assumed to partially loosen the triple-helical structure of skin collagen, leading to the lower stability of skin collagen mentioned above. Finally, phylogenetic analyses revealed that pro alpha3(I) had diverged from pro alpha1(I). This study is the first report of the complete primary structure of fish type I procollagen.