Impact of collagen III reduction on the covalent cross-linking in the collagen fibrils of articular cartilage (AC) and meniscus (M). a,b) Comparisons of collagen amount and cross-linking between wild-type (+/+) and Col3a1+/− (+/−) tissues, a) total collagen amount, and b) cross-linking analysis of the immature cross-link dihydroxylysinonorleucine (DHLNL), mature cross-link pyrodinoline (Pyd) and deoxy-pyrodinoline (de-Pyd) and total LOX-mediated aldehyde densities. c) Western blot on the expression of LOX and associated semi-quantitative levels of LOX content, as normalized to the internal GAPDH control. All the results were obtained from 2-month-old tissues (mean ± SD, n = 4 biological repeats for articular cartilage, and n = 3 for meniscus). Each data point represents one biological repeat measured from tissues pooled from 3 animals.