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. 2008 Oct;20(5-24):495–501. doi: 10.1016/j.ceb.2008.06.008

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Schematic of the 10 + 4 microfibril structure of a thin cartilage collagen fibril. A pair of collagen XI microfibrils comprise half of a 4 microfibril core surrounded by 10 microfibrils at the surface. The collagen XI/IX/II assembly is a crosslinked heteropolymer, as is V/I, and is an important component of the fibril assembly mechanism. Blue: collagen II molecules; yellow: collagen XI molecules; red: collagen IX molecules. The N-terminal thrombospondin-like domains of collagen XI (yellow) are shown extending from the core microfibrils onto the fibril surface (model kindly provided by Dr David Eyre, University of Washington, Seattle).