Project description:Analysis of organic residues from different typologies of ancient funerary pottery found in graves at two archaeological sites of Campania Region in southern Italy and dating back to the age of the Italic populations during the first millennium BC. Several analytical techniques have been exploited. Proteomics was decisive for the characterization of the proteins and the assignment of the species of origin. Samples were encrustations on two bowls of the 3rd-4th century BC unhearted in Capua and one Phoenician-type amphora with unusual shape, found in a grave at the necropolis of the Greek colony in Cuma (7th century BC). Concretions on bowls were identified with the decisive contribution of proteomics as bovine bone. The amphora contained 2,500 years old bovine milk.
Project description:Bone protein extractions for stable isotope analysis from 18th and 19th century humans from North America were analyzed for their protein content. Samples were classified by their stable isotope quality and changes between them were evaluated.
2020-10-05 | MSV000086235 | MassIVE
Project description:Metabolomics and metagenomics analysis of 18th century archaeological silk
Project description:The close relationship between diet and health is generally recognized and the growing wellness and consciousness, especially in developed countries, have led to increasing interest for old wheat genotypes, based on perceived health benefits. Although nutritional comparison between old and modern wheat varieties is still controversial, it is generally accepted that old wheat genotypes remained unchanged over the last hundred years. By contrast, modern wheat genotypes are derived by modification of old wheats during the so-called “Green-Revolution” in the second half of the 20th century focusing on obtaining properties in terms of higher grain yield. The present work reports the first comprehensive proteomic profiling and qualitative comparison at the molecular level of metabolic and Chloroform-Methanol (CM)-like protein fractions extracted from mature kernels of two old Sicilian durum wheat landraces, Russello and Timilia Reste Bianche, and Simeto, an improved durum wheat variety widespread in Italy and other Mediterranean countries and chosen as representative of the most widely commercial cultivars. The results obtained reveal that metabolic and CM-like protein fractions of old and modern genotypes present remarkably high similarity with only minor differences. This leads to the conclusion that from a food and nutritional perspective there is a substantial equivalence of the protein composition of the old and modern cultivars.
Project description:Reconstruction of ancient epigenomes by DNA methylation (DNAm) can shed light into the composition of cell types, disease states, and age at death. However, such analysis is hampered by impaired DNA quality and little is known how decomposition affects DNAm. In this study, we determined if EPIC Illumina BeadChip technology is applicable for specimen from mummies of the 18th century CE. Overall, the signal intensity on the microarray was extremely low, but for one of two samples we detected characteristic DNAm signals in a subset of CG dinucleotides (CpGs), which were selected with a stringent processing pipeline. Using only these CpGs we could train epigenetic signatures with reference DNAm profiles of multiple tissues and our predictions were in line with the fact that the specimen was lung tissue of a female 28-year-old donor. Thus, we provide proof of principle that Illumina BeadChips are applicable for DNAm profiling in ancient samples.
