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Molecular fingerprints resolve affinities of Rhynie chert organic fossils

The affinities of extinct organisms are often difficult to resolve using morphological data alone. Chemical analysis of carbonaceous specimens can complement traditional approaches, but the search for taxon-specific signals in ancient, thermally altered organic matter is challenging and controversia...

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Autores principales: Loron, C. C., Rodriguez Dzul, E., Orr, P. J., Gromov, A. V., Fraser, N. C., McMahon, S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10011563/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36914650
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-37047-1
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author Loron, C. C.
Rodriguez Dzul, E.
Orr, P. J.
Gromov, A. V.
Fraser, N. C.
McMahon, S.
author_facet Loron, C. C.
Rodriguez Dzul, E.
Orr, P. J.
Gromov, A. V.
Fraser, N. C.
McMahon, S.
author_sort Loron, C. C.
collection PubMed
description The affinities of extinct organisms are often difficult to resolve using morphological data alone. Chemical analysis of carbonaceous specimens can complement traditional approaches, but the search for taxon-specific signals in ancient, thermally altered organic matter is challenging and controversial, partly because suitable positive controls are lacking. Here, we show that non-destructive Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) resolves in-situ molecular fingerprints in the famous 407 Ma Rhynie chert fossil assemblage of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, an important early terrestrial Lagerstätte. Remarkably, unsupervised clustering methods (principal components analysis and K-mean) separate the fossil spectra naturally into eukaryotes and prokaryotes (cyanobacteria). Additional multivariate statistics and machine-learning approaches also differentiate prokaryotes from eukaryotes, and discriminate eukaryotic tissue types, despite the overwhelming influence of silica. We find that these methods can clarify the affinities of morphologically ambiguous taxa; in the Rhynie chert for example, we show that the problematic “nematophytes” have a plant-like composition. Overall, we demonstrate that the famously exquisite preservation of cells, tissues and organisms in the Rhynie chert accompanies similarly impressive preservation of molecular information. These results provide a compelling positive control that validates the use of infrared spectroscopy to investigate the affinity of organic fossils in chert.
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spelling pubmed-100115632023-03-15 Molecular fingerprints resolve affinities of Rhynie chert organic fossils Loron, C. C. Rodriguez Dzul, E. Orr, P. J. Gromov, A. V. Fraser, N. C. McMahon, S. Nat Commun Article The affinities of extinct organisms are often difficult to resolve using morphological data alone. Chemical analysis of carbonaceous specimens can complement traditional approaches, but the search for taxon-specific signals in ancient, thermally altered organic matter is challenging and controversial, partly because suitable positive controls are lacking. Here, we show that non-destructive Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) resolves in-situ molecular fingerprints in the famous 407 Ma Rhynie chert fossil assemblage of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, an important early terrestrial Lagerstätte. Remarkably, unsupervised clustering methods (principal components analysis and K-mean) separate the fossil spectra naturally into eukaryotes and prokaryotes (cyanobacteria). Additional multivariate statistics and machine-learning approaches also differentiate prokaryotes from eukaryotes, and discriminate eukaryotic tissue types, despite the overwhelming influence of silica. We find that these methods can clarify the affinities of morphologically ambiguous taxa; in the Rhynie chert for example, we show that the problematic “nematophytes” have a plant-like composition. Overall, we demonstrate that the famously exquisite preservation of cells, tissues and organisms in the Rhynie chert accompanies similarly impressive preservation of molecular information. These results provide a compelling positive control that validates the use of infrared spectroscopy to investigate the affinity of organic fossils in chert. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-03-13 /pmc/articles/PMC10011563/ /pubmed/36914650 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-37047-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Loron, C. C.
Rodriguez Dzul, E.
Orr, P. J.
Gromov, A. V.
Fraser, N. C.
McMahon, S.
Molecular fingerprints resolve affinities of Rhynie chert organic fossils
title Molecular fingerprints resolve affinities of Rhynie chert organic fossils
title_full Molecular fingerprints resolve affinities of Rhynie chert organic fossils
title_fullStr Molecular fingerprints resolve affinities of Rhynie chert organic fossils
title_full_unstemmed Molecular fingerprints resolve affinities of Rhynie chert organic fossils
title_short Molecular fingerprints resolve affinities of Rhynie chert organic fossils
title_sort molecular fingerprints resolve affinities of rhynie chert organic fossils
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10011563/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36914650
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-37047-1
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