Changes in the Thermal Decomposition of Aorta, Tendon and Articular Cartilage in Experimental Lathyrism

Abstract

A thermal analytical method was applied to study the effect of experimental lathyrism on the composition and structural stability of aorta, tendon and hyaline cartilages of rabbits.A defect in collagen and elastin synthesis, resulting in the production of labile cross-linkages within the fibrillar protein moiety of the connective and vascular tissues of growing animals could be demonstrated. In the aorta and tendon of young rabbits glycosa4minoglycan concentration increased in the first 20 days of treatment. In the investigated tissues of adult animals β-amino-propionitrile-feeding caused no alterations.

Thermoanalytical studies on protein-polysaccharide complexes of connective tissues

“…In our experiments a complex thermoanalytical method [1] was applied to study various collagen-proteoglycan-glycoprotein complexes prepared from different connective tissues by the method of Robert et al [2]. Thermal analysis was successfully used in our previous investigations for the quantitative determination of polysaccharides [3], for the characterization of protein structure [4], and for the estimation of age-related [5,6] and pathological [7][8][9][10][11][12][13] changes in proteoglycan-and collagen-containing biological tissues. …”