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Protein Sequences from Mastodon and Tyrannosaurus Rex Revealed by Mass Spectrometry
John M. Asara,1,2*Mary H. Schweitzer,3Lisa M. Freimark,1Matthew Phillips,1Lewis C. Cantley1,4
Fossilized bones from extinct taxa harbor the potential forobtaining protein or DNA sequences that could reveal evolutionarylinks to extant species. We used mass spectrometry to obtainprotein sequences from bones of a 160,000- to 600,000-year-oldextinct mastodon (Mammut americanum) and a 68-million-year-olddinosaur (Tyrannosaurus rex). The presence of T. rex sequencesindicates that their peptide bonds were remarkably stable. Massspectrometry can thus be used to determine unique sequencesfrom ancient organisms from peptide fragmentation patterns,a valuable tool to study the evolution and adaptation of ancienttaxa from which genomic sequences are unlikely to be obtained.
1 Division of Signal Transduction, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA 02115, USA. 2 Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA; North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, NC 27601, USA; and Museum of the Rockies, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717, USA. 3 Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA. 4 Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jasara{at}bidmc.harvard.edu
John M. Asara, Mary H. Schweitzer, Lewis C. Cantley, and John S. Cottrell (22 August 2008) Science321 (5892), 1040c.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.1157829] |Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »
TECHNICAL COMMENTS
Mike Buckley, Angela Walker, Simon Y. W. Ho, Yue Yang, Colin Smith, Peter Ashton, Jane Thomas Oates, Enrico Cappellini, Hannah Koon, Kirsty Penkman, Ben Elsworth, Dave Ashford, Caroline Solazzo, Phillip Andrews, John Strahler, Beth Shapiro, Peggy Ostrom, Hasand Gandhi, Webb Miller, Brian Raney, Maria Ines Zylber, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Richard V. Prigodich, Michael Ryan, Kenneth F. Rijsdijk, Anwar Janoo, and Matthew J. Collins (4 January 2008) Science319 (5859), 33c.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.1147046] |Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »|Supporting Online Material »
TECHNICAL COMMENTS
John M. Asara and Mary H. Schweitzer (4 January 2008) Science319 (5859), 33d.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.1147364] |Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »
LETTERS
John M. Asara, John S. Garavelli, David A. Slatter, Mary H. Schweitzer, Lisa M. Freimark, Matthew Phillips, and Lewis C. Cantley (7 September 2007) Science317 (5843), 1324.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.317.5843.1324] |Full Text »|PDF »|Supporting Online Material »
REPORTS
Mary Higby Schweitzer, Zhiyong Suo, Recep Avci, John M. Asara, Mark A. Allen, Fernando Teran Arce, and John R. Horner (13 April 2007) Science316 (5822), 277.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.1138709] |Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »|Supporting Online Material »
