The effect of erythritol, xylitol and sorbitol on monomeric collagen solution was evaluated with melting temperature, fluorescence studies, conformational stability and binding energy. The emission intensity and the melting temperature increase as the chain length of polyols increases. Circular dichroism (CD) results indicate the possibility of aggregation of collagen in the presence of polyols. The interaction between collagen and polyols were calculated using binding energy, RMS deviation with collagen like models. Molecular mechanics calculations suggest that polyols bind well with collagen models, that have serine in the X position. The stability of collagen decreases as the number of carbon atoms present in the polyols increases. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.