96.A 33-year-old homeless woman has been living in an abandoned
building eating dried meat, bread from the trash cans outside a bakery. She
smokes cigarettes she “bums” from others. She presents at the free clinic
with bleeding under the skin particularly around hair follicles with bruises
on her arms and legs. She is irritable, clinically depressed, and fatigued
with general muscle weakness. Her gums are bleeding, swollen, purple,
and spongy. Her incisors and second molars are loose. She has an infected
toe, which may be broken. She is afebrile and a glucose finger stick is nor-
mal and urine dipstick shows no sugar, protein or ketones. You suspect a
vitamin deficiency. What might be the underlying mechanism for the
symptoms in this patient?
a. Decreased degradation of collagen
b. Stimulation of prolyl hydroxylase
c. Formation of unstable collagen helices
d. Excessive callus formation in healing fractures
e. Organ fibrosis
97.Which of the following is a major contributor to the tensile strength of
collagen?
a. Interactions with the FACIT collagens
b. The double helical arrangement of collagen
c. Electrostatic interactions
d. Intramolecular and intermolecular cross-links
e. Low concentrations of lysine
98.Laminin functions in which of following ways?
a. As an integrin
b. In cell-cell adhesion
c. As the insoluble scaffolding of the basal lamina
d. As the filtration molecule in the basement membrane
e. In adherence of epithelia to the basement membrane
Connective Tissue 175