Collagen extraction from pretreated bone/tooth samples v1

This protocol presents the procedure of extracting collagen from a sample of bone or tooth, prior to stable isotope analysis, radiocarbon dating, and/or proteomic identification. The sample is assumed to be pre- treated (cut off from the specimen, cleaned, defatted, crushed). The procedure follows the ABA methodology (Acid-Base-Acid treatment) and enables high pureness of the resulted collagen along still-high efficiency of collagen yield. Basic health safety practices are also provided. The expected result is around 20 mg of pure and dry collagen, ready for further analyses. The collagen resulting from this protocol is fluffy and cotton-like. This protocol has been established and tested in the Biogeology working group of the Department of Geosciences, University of Tübingen (Tübingen, Germany) and the Bioindicator and Stable Isotope labs of the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Warsaw, Poland).