Mammalian Elastic Cartilage

Connective tissue includes bone, cartilage, tendons, and fatty tissues. Differing from articular (or hyaline) cartilage that depends on a stiff, fibrillar collagen network with fluid-filled spaces, mammalian elastic cartilage contains little or no collagen. Rather, elastic cartilage relies on other fibrillar matrix proteins for structural integrity. Elastin, the most well-studied of these proteins, forms the matrix of elastic cartilages typical of the mammalian ear, laryngeal tissues, and the epiglottis.