Collagen XVI is a homotrimeric member of the fibril-associated collagens with interrupted triple helices (FACIT)-family of collagens. Alpha-1(XVI) chains contain ten collagenous domains interspersed with 11 non-collagenous (NC) regions. In skin, collagen XVI is exclusively integrated into specialized fibrillin-1 rich microfibrils which do not overtly contain amorphous elastin cores. In contrast, collagen XVI is absent from the elastic microfibrils in the deeper reticular dermis, but can associate to not yet identified structural aggregates. This localization may indicate that collagen XVI plays an active role in anchoring microfibrils to basement membranes, a connection which principally occurs in many tissues. In cartilage, however, collagen XVI is a component of small heterotypic D-banded fibrils, preferentially occurring in the territorial matrix (Kassner et al. 2003). These fibrils are molecular alloys with collagen II as the major collagenous component and collagen XI as a minor constituent.