SYNOPSIS
More than 25 molecular species of collagen have been found in the various animal tissues. Three polypeptides of Type I collagen subunits with molecular weight of 100 kDa (two alpha 1 subunit and one alpha 2 subunit) are intertwined each other to form a triple helical structure. Type I collagen have been used for the purpose of various application in medical devices such as cell culture scaffold, matrices for drug delivery systems. Cross-linking of collagen subunits is important to reinforce mechanical strength of collagen gel in such application. I overview the various different methods and strategies for cross-linking collagen gels those has been reported in the literature and discuss the advantage and disadvantage of those methods, especially those in radiation-based methods in this review article.

Key words:collagen gel, radiation, cross-link