Project description:In the context of human evolution, the study of proteins may overcome the limitation of the high degradation of ancient DNA over time for providing biomolecular information useful to precise the phylogeny of hominid taxa. Here, we have analysed and compared the tooth proteome of five extant primates (human, gorilla, chimpanzee, orangutan and baboon) using a shotgun proteomics approach. Twenty five proteins were shared by the five datasets, and may be considered as the most representative tooth proteins with a chance of being retrieved from older samples. Some of them were identified by peptides specific to the species, thus allowing to draw up a combinatory panel of peptides with species signature that could be helpful for the taxonomic characterization of ancient samples
2020-11-17 | PXD018933 | Pride
Project description:Ancient DNA Genome Skimming - Post-Medieval elephant tooth from Portugal
Project description:Gene expression profiles were generated from embryonic day 13.5 CD-1 mouse mandibular first molars whole tooth and non-tooth non-bone oral tissue. Three biological replicates from embryonic day 13.5 CD-1 mice were generated from pooled tissues across multiple mice. The tooth germ and non-tooth oral tissues were paired from the same embryos.
Project description:Morphological identification of ancient bone is often problematic due to heavy fragmentation that generally influences zooarchaeological assemblages. Fish bones are more taphonomically sensitive than those of other vertebrates as they are typically smaller and less biomineralised. Thus, taxonomic identification based on the preservation of morphological features is often extremely limited and can reduce or eliminate the usefulness of an assemblage for inferring taxon information. Currently, one of the most time- and cost-efficient methods of achieving faunal identity from ancient bone is by the collagen fingerprinting technique known as ZooMS (Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry). ZooMS harnesses the potential of preserved collagen, which is the most dominant and time-stable protein in bone. In this research, ZooMS is applied to ancient Baltic region fish assemblages that are between 500 and 6000 years old in order to define species identity and construct assemblage compositions. Alongside inferences into environmental and biological shifts from the Neolithic era to present day in the Baltic region, we demonstrate for the first time the ability to distinguish between recently diverged members of the Salmo (salmon) and Scophthalmus (turbot) genera. ZooMS analysis highlights 7% of the collagen-containing assemblage as having been morphologically identified incorrectly and has facilitated taxonomic refinement of a further 28% of samples, including some of the morphologically indeterminate bone fragments. This research emphasises the great potential of ZooMS in identifying ichthyoarchaeological bone remains to species-level, and provides a case for the use of collagen fingerprinting in contributing to baseline fisheries and ecological data, to inform modern management.