Abstract

Nearly one third of protein in the body consists of collagen. It plays a key role in providing the structural scaffolding for cells, tissues, and organs. With available literature, we show that prolonged exposure of cultures of human connective-tissue cells to ascorbate (vitamin C) induces an eight-fold increase in the synthesis of collagen with no increase in the rate of synthesis of other proteins. Making advantage of increased degree of polarization due to enhanced rate of collagen biosynthesis in the presence of vitamin C, we propose a better imaging modality for diagnosing thermal damage in human tissues.

Key words: Collagen, vitamin C, triple helix, birefringence, optical coherence tomography.