Dr. Yong-Su Jin and team used CHPs in their research to follow collagen synthesis and degradation through an IPF (idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis) model using bleomycin and the resolution of fibrosis thereafter. Because biochemical assays (the golden standard) show consistently high levels of hydroxyproline content, it fails to detect that fibrosis can resolve itself. Jin et al. used CHPs and Sirius red in histopathology to observe that collagen l...
Another great paper using CHPs! A recent article published in Wound Repair and Regeneration evaluated how the level of collagen denaturation within burned tissues influences the effectiveness of enzymatic debridement (removal of damaged tissue). They showed that low-temperature burns (<65 °C) had inadequate debridement, while high-temperature burns (>65 °C) had very effective debridement. By using CHPs, Sirius red (PSR), and second harmonic gener...
A great new paper from our founder's lab, Dr. Michael Yu at the University of Utah! They developed a dimerized version of the CHP that is linked on the C-terminus that allows for faster-refolding kinetics which can be useful for creating ELISA assays to detect low levels of damaged collagen in biological fluids. They show that it has the ability to capture fragments of collagen that would otherwise go unnoticed and were able to facilitate early peptido...
In a recent publication in PLOS Biology, researchers utilized CHPs to test how DO (human leukocyte histocompatibility complex) influences the progression of autoimmune diseases. They tested CHPs in collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) mouse model involving DO knockout (KO) mice. Through this model (as well as others) they found that a lack of DO shows increased susceptibility to autoimmune diseases. CHPs (Red) showed areas with collagen degradation in the j...
Another great article using CHPs! In this interesting paper, coming out of Dr. Ryan C. Smith's lab from Iowa State, they utilized CHPs to examine the damage done in the midgut of mosquitoes after blood or protein meal feeding. They go on to say that this damage from multiple feedings impacts malaria oocytes' survival. They found that human malaria parasites captured host resources to facilitate their growth after multiple feedings when the basal lamina ...
A newly published article from Dr. Hocking's Lab used F-CHPs to image collagen remodeling due to acoustic disturbance. They found that exposing the collagen hydrogels to ultrasound waves revealed areas of cell-mediated collagen fiber remodeling. These areas of collagen remodeling were corroborated with SHG imaging. These results indicate that ultrasound exposure does not directly alter triple-helical conformation of collagen, but sensitizes t...
A new paper published in Circulation Research used CHPs as a way to study the effects of fibroblast-specific Smad3 loss on collagen fragmentation and denaturation. They found that the FS3KO (fibroblast-specific Smad3 knockout) mice showed much higher collagen degradation (Bottom) than the Smad3 fl/fl (flox/flox) mice (top). They saw that smad3 activated cardiac fibroblasts play an important protective role, preserving the ECM network, suppressing macro...
Our founders and inventors of the CHP for 3Helix, Dr.'s Yang Li and Michael Yu, published a chapter titled "In Situ Detection of Degraded and Denatured Collagen via Triple Helical Hybridization: New Tool in Histopathology" in Collagen!! They are thankful for the co-editors and the tremendous contributions of all authors and experts of the field that made this volume possible. They hope that this book on collagen will be a useful tool for scientists wor...
Brand new work published in Developmental Cell by Stephen Weiss and our founder Michael Yu! They evaluated protease-dependent invasion of breast cancer cells by examining how ECM remodeling and branching morphogenesis are influenced by specific matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs). They utilized CHPs to analyze the collagen proteolysis in remodeling events along developing mammary epithelial ducts.
Abstract: Metastasizing breast carcinoma cells have been h...
For those of you interested in how CHP technology works, take a look at this schematic showing how single-stranded CHPs (formerly known as CMPs) are generated either from thermally dissociating the triple helix or by utilizing a photo-sensitive cage group that prevents self-trimerization completely. Once in a single-stranded conformation, CHPs can be used to bind to denatured collagen. This paper goes into detail on how CHPs binding mechanism works and...
