Collagen possesses a characteristic, highly organized triple-helix structure that provides structural integrity, tensile strength, and elasticity to connective tissues throughout the animal body. The fundamental building block, known as tropocollagen, consists of three intertwined polypeptide chains called alpha chains, which adopt a left-handed helical conformation and wrap around one another in a right-handed super-helical arrangement. This tight structure is heavily dependent on a repeating amino acid sequence where glycine occupies every third position, allowing the chains to pack closely together, stabilized extensively by hydrogen bonds and covalent cross-linking between proline and hydroxyproline residues.