Biomedical applications of collagen are conditioned by its use in a state very close to the native state, as it concerns conformation and reactivity. Minimal denaturation implies that both the collagen structure and the side amino acid groups are kept intact. The bulk of alterations take place in phases preceding the extraction itself.
Material and method: The authors have established an optimal protocol for preprocessing of young bovine hides, i.e. to obtain a maximum solubilisation yield when a standard proteases-based solubilisation technique was applied.
Results: The sequence: unhairing--loosing--cleaning--labilisation of corium tissue was taken in account. The effect of the treating composition upon the deamination degree of the extracted collagen was determined through a binary gradient HPLC technique, on a ProPac WCX-10 analytical column. The optimal range of loosing--cleaning recipe components was found to be between 18 ... 27% dithiotreitol (DDT), 12 ... 20% N-ethyl-acetamide (NEM) and 30 ... 53% iodide-acetamide (IDAM).