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THE PROTEIN ARCHIVE
Preservation potential of ancient human diets and diseases

DNA and proteins are now almost routinely being retrieved from sediments and archaeological artefacts. Despite the realization that adsorption of DNA molecules onto the surfaces of minerals can significantly decrease the DNA and protein decay rate, the longevity of mineral bound biomolecules is a still-standing frontier. Recently it was shown that peptide sequences in eggshell proteins persist to 3.8 Ma in Africa, implying that protein sequences will span the whole of human history in all parts of the world. Ancient protein sequences, therefore, persist beyond the lipid or DNA sequence and can be used to identify organisms (ZooMS), identify specific tissues, sex individuals, and identify tissue responses to disease.


Understanding the protein-mineral interaction and environmental preservative conditions of adsorbed biomolecules –proteins can thus allow us to a) target such environments for paleoecological and palaeogenetic studies and; b) serve as a quantitative tool for assessing protein sequence migration i.e. ancient microbial communities. To date, we only have a qualitative idea of how solution composition affects the protein-mineral adsorption/desorption at the bulk level, and we have no quantitative insight into the single bond level energetics as well as the nature and fraction of the interacting bonds.

Project collaborator: Prof. Matthew Collins, GLOBE and Cambridge, UK.

 

FUNDING

HORIZON 2020

Toosin a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (H2020-MSCA-IF-EF-ST) for our ProArch project.

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APPROACH

We are currently combining top down and bottom up approaches to address these questions

Updates on progress and ongoing data collection in the Blog

Near-final and Published data will be added below

Stay tuned

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