EXPERIMENTS ON COLLAGEN HUMIC INTERACTIONS - SPEED OF HUMIC UPTAKE, AND EFFECTS OF DIVERSE CHEMICAL TREATMENTS

Undegraded, recent Type I collagen was reacted with two different batches of humic acid, monitoring the speed of humic acid uptake, and measuring the final maximum uptake. The speed of uptake turned out to be quite high (saturation in hours rather than days), and so was the average maximum uptake (20-25% humic added). The resulting complex was analysed using delta C-13 and C-14 measurements, and Fourier-transform IR (FTIR) spectroscopy, and then subjected to a number of different chemical treatments including enzymatic digestion. We found that most chemical procedures only partially remove the humics (only treatment with ninhydrin, and HPLC-purified tripeptides produced by the enzyme treatment were capable of completely removing humic), which is a significant finding in the light of effectiveness of radiocarbon/stable isotope chemistries. In the case of enzymatic digestion, collagenase action was not hindered by the 0.8 kDa humic linked to the collagen, but was by the larger (3-30 kDa) humic.