Fig. 7.

Schematic of cell-independent orthogonality of collagen fibril arrangement. Collagen fibrils, shown in grey, and type IX collagen molecules (with associated CS/DS chains), in black, are all 65 nm apart giving rise to a ‘square lattice’ appearance. Only some of the collagen IX molecules are shown. A reduction in interfibrillar spacing, along with the fact that the position of the collagen IX molecules along the collagen fibrils does not change, brings about a rotation of adjacent collagen layers with respect to each other (B).