by Scientists remained old proteins from a fossilized rhinoceros -tooth and broke new properties in the study of old life on earth.
The 24 million year old tooth discovered in the Canadian Arctic contains proteins that are 10 times older than the oldest known DNA. With the sample, scientists have now analyzed the oldest detailed protein sequence that draws.
“Eamilla is so hard that he protects these proteins over deep time (long -term scales),” said Ryan Sinclair Paterson, a post -doctoral researcher at the Globe Institute of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, who headed Canadian research. “It is essentially like a vault. What we did was to unlock this vault, at least for this special fossil.”
The study of the old DNA, which was kept in bones, fossils and dirt, has revolutionized archaeological science and withdrew the curtain of lost rich, mysterious clans, ice age creatures and previously unknown human species. Old proteins promise a similar revolution for fossils that are many millions of years old and are currently going beyond the chronological reach of the old DNA.
The study published on July 9th in the Scientific Journal Nature shows the enormous potential of the field, which is known as paleoprototomics.
Proteins consist of sequences of amino acids are more robust than DNA, a fragile molecule that builds up relatively easily. Although proteins contain less detailed information, you can help to clarify the evolutionary history of a copy, nutrition, even in some cases the gender of a fossil.
“The next step is to demonstrate that it is not just a sample, a stroke of luck,” said coautor Enrico Cappellini, professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Globe Institute, who has pioneering methods for the extraction of proteins from fossils and was involved in Canadian research.
“But there may be a huge area of research that could be clarified further, and if we really push it on … we could even start examining dinosaurs,” he added.
A look at the Haighton formation near Rabbit Run Creek on Devon Island, Nunavut. The dry, cold “polar deserts” contributed to preserving the old rhinos fossil found here, including traces of original proteins. – Martin Lipman
Mystery Rhino
Together with colleagues from the University of York and the Canadian Museum of Nature, Cappellini and Paterson regained sequences of seven proteins that were kept in the petrified Nashorn tooth.
When sequencing old proteins, the determination of the order of amino acids includes in one sample. By comparing the sequences with those of living and extinct relatives, the scientists were able to record information about the development of the rhino. The analysis showed that she lived from the same family as about 41 million to 25 million years ago.
“There were some crazy forms in the fossil recording (from Rhinoceros species). There are the Woll -Rhinoceros, and maybe they heard of the Siberian unicorn with the gigantic horn,” said Paterson. “We were able to compare our mysterious rhino with other forms and find out where it falls into the family tree.”
Separate research, which were also published on July 9th in the Nature magazine and tried the fossils from Kenya Turkana Basin, suggests that biomolecules can survive millions of years, even in scorching, tropical environments.
The study in which 10 mammalic fossils were analyzed, including the relatives of today’s elephants, Hippos and rhinos, was published by researchers at the Museum Conservation Institute and Harvard University of Smithsonian Institution.
They restored proteins from five of the fossils 1.5 to 18 million years ago and found that scientists themselves can extract prehistoric proteins in tropical regions with high temperatures, which can reveal connections between old elephants and rhinos and their modern relatives.
While the information contained in the Kenyan proteins was not as detailed as in Fossil, Canada, the authors said that their presence in enamel tissues in one of the warmest regions in the world promised that proteins could be discovered in much older fossils.
“We were excitingly successful. We went back to about 18 million years. I think the time should be possible,” said study author Timothy Cleland, physical scientist at the Museum Conservation Institute.
A look at the Turkwel River in Turkana, Nordkenia, where fossil proteins were found. – Daniel Green/Ellen Miller
‘Shocking’
Research on the Canadian fossil was “solid and super interesting,” said Maarten Dhaenens, researcher at the University of Ghent in Belgium, who specializes in Proteomik. Dhaenens, who was not involved in a two study, said, however, the method used in the Kenyan fossils was complex and less tested. The results of the researchers are more difficult to interpret and a more thorough evaluation.
“The data is publicly available, so we should be able to check your claims through manual validation, but this takes time,” he said via e -mail.
Evan Saitta, paleontologist and research assistant in the Chicago Feldmuseum for Natural History, said that it was “shocking” to find proteins that were kept in fossil fossils in tropical latitudes, and added that the results are required. It was previously assumed that cold temperatures were necessary to slow down protein.
“If this is a real result … it should be very easy to replicate,” he noted. “We should be able to walk around all different fossil locations around the world and find enamel peptides (proteins).”
Proteins from fossils that this old dream of a paleontologist are true, said Matthew Collins, the McDonald professor for Paleoprototomics at the British University of Cambridge, which was agreed that research on the Canadian fossil was more convincing. Like Saitta, Collins was not involved in the new research.
“This is amazing. It is really exciting, but at the same time I was so disappointed in my career by thinking we had very old proteins and we didn’t do it,” added Collins, who tried to regain proteins from dinosaur fossils.
Ryan Paterson, right and Enrico Cappellini left, led the analysis on the Rhino -Zahnfossil. – Palesa Madupe
Dinosaurs next?
Collins and Saitta were part of a team that recognized amino acids in a titanosaur eggshell fragment, according to the studies published in 2024. The egg was laid by a vegetable sauropod, a huge, long -term dinosaurs who lived in the late Cretaceous period, just before Dinosaurs died 66 million years ago.
However, the dinosaur eggshell was missing identifiable protein sequences. Their results were comparable to the identification of five letters in a novel and only revealed a expiry pattern that showed that proteins were once in the egg shell, said Saitta.
“There is no sequence, no information, only the small individual Lego building blocks from (amino acids),” said Collins.
It is a long shot to get protein information from a dinosaur tooth, and Saitta noted that he had given up looking for proteins in dinosaur fossils to explore more interesting research questions.
Dinosaur fossils are not only far older than the fossils in the two studies, but also come, but they mainly come to a pocket house in the global climate if there were no ice caps. In addition, dinosaur fossils are buried much deeper and have therefore experienced far larger geothermal heat. It is also not clear whether dinosaurs had fat enough enamel to get proteins, he added.
Cappellini and Paterson said it could possibly be possible to access useful protein information from dinosaur fossils within 10 years, even though there were first other interesting questions that were first examined, such as the cathedral of mammals to dominate the planet after the dinosaurs.
“I really think that some websites could get dinosaur proteins in a deep time. Maybe we can give it a shot,” said Paterson.
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