Discovery of Ancient Proteins in 24-Million-Year-Old Fossils

Scientists have made progress in finding ancient DNA in fossils, but the oldest DNA obtained dates back about two million years. Proteins, the cell's molecular machinery, offer valuable information and can survive much longer. Researchers have extracted and sequenced proteins from dental fossils of extinct rhinoceroses, elephants, and hippopotamuses, including a rhino tooth 21-24 million years old. Protein fragments were found in fossils from the High Arctic of Canada and a rift valley in Kenya.

This opens a new frontier for probing the deep evolutionary past, including the human lineage and dinosaurs. Ancient proteins can provide molecular data from specimens too old for DNA preservation, clarifying evolutionary relationships across the tree of life. The new research extends ancient protein research back by millions of years.

Proteins obtained from teeth of ancient animals in Kenya and Canada showed ties between these species and their modern-day relatives. The proteins revealed how species fit into the evolutionary tree. Proteins were extracted from peptides found inside tooth enamel, providing insights into the biological functions of these proteins.

Ancient proteins have been found in the teeth of extinct species in the human evolutionary lineage. The study of proteins from large-bodied species dating to the age of mammals offers promise for exploring the enamel proteome of our evolutionary ancestors. The number of detectable proteins declined in progressively older fossils, but there is potential for finding proteins dating to the age of dinosaurs.

According to the source: CNA.