Because of its unique physical and chemical properties, rat tail tendon collagen has long been favored for crystallographic and biochemical studies of fibril structure. In studies of the distribution of 3-hydroxyproline in type I collagen of rat bone, skin, and tail tendon by mass spectrometry, the repeating sequences of Gly-Pro-Pro (GPP) triplets at the C terminus of ␣1(I) and ␣2(I) chains were shown to be heavily 3-hydroxylated in tendon but not in skin and bone. By isolating the tryptic peptides and subjecting them to Edman sequence analysis, the presence of repeating 3-hydroxyprolines in consecutive GPP triplets adjacent to 4-hydroxyproline was confirmed as a unique feature of the tendon collagen. A 1960s study by Piez et al. (Piez, K. A., Eigner, E. A., and Lewis, M. S. (1963) Biochemistry 2, 58 -66) in which they compared the amino acid compositions of rat skin and tail tendon type I collagen chains indeed showed 3-4 residues of 3Hyp in tendon ␣1(I) and ␣2(I) chains but only one 3Hyp residue in skin ␣1(I) and none in ␣2(I). The present work therefore confirms this difference and localizes the additional 3Hyp to the GPP repeat at the C terminus of the triple-helix. We speculate on the significance in terms of a potential function in contributing to the unique assembly mechanism and molecular packing in tendon collagen fibrils and on mechanisms that could regulate 3-hydroxylation at this novel substrate site in a tissuespecific manner.Prolyl 3-hydroxylation, a long recognized quantitatively minor post-translational modification of collagen (1), has received much attention in the last few years after gene mutations affecting its formation were found to cause recessive forms of osteogenesis imperfecta (2-5). A single primary site of 3-hydroxyproline (3Hyp) 2 is present in normal collagen ␣1(I) and ␣1(II) chains at Pro-986 of the triple-helix (6, 7) but is not hydroxylated in the tissues of mice and humans with recessive osteogenesis imperfecta caused by mutations in CRTAP or LEPRE1 (the gene encoding P3H1) (2-5). The LEPRE1 gene encodes P3H1, which is one of three prolyl 3-hydroxylases (P3H1, P3H2, and P3H3) in the mammalian genome. CRTAP encodes a protein that is homologous to the N-terminal half of P3H1, which it associates with P3H1 together with cyclophilin B to form the functional enzyme complex required for Pro-986 3-hydroxylation of unfolded collagen chains in the endoplasmic reticulum (8).We recently identified several other sites of prolyl 3-hydroxylation in fibrillar collagen chains including Pro-707 in ␣2(I) and ␣2(V), Pro-944 in ␣1(II) and ␣2(V), Pro-470 in ␣2(V), and Pro-434, Pro-665, and Pro-692 in ␣1(V), ␣1(XI), and ␣2(XI) but a lack of any 3-hydroxyproline in the mammalian ␣1(III) chain (7). The D-periodic spacing between three of these additional sites in clade A collagen chains (␣1(I), ␣2(I), ␣1(II), and ␣2(V)) and between two in clade B (␣1(V), ␣1(XI), and ␣2(XI)) suggested a role in fibril formation. In pursuing this concept further, we investigated the potential for differences in 3-hydrox...