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Preservation of collagen in the soft tissues of frozen mammoths
We investigated the characteristics of extracellular matrix (ECM) in the soft tissue of two frozen baby woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) that died and were buried in Siberian permafrost approximately 40,000 years ago. Morphological and biochemical analyses of mammoth lung and liver demonstrat...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8555803/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34714842 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258699 |
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author | Hattori, Shunji Kiriyama-Tanaka, Tomomi Kusubata, Masashi Taga, Yuki Ebihara, Testuya Kumazawa, Yuki Imai, Katsuyuki Miura, Mitsutaka Mezaki, Yoshihiro Tikhonov, Alexei Senoo, Haruki |
author_facet | Hattori, Shunji Kiriyama-Tanaka, Tomomi Kusubata, Masashi Taga, Yuki Ebihara, Testuya Kumazawa, Yuki Imai, Katsuyuki Miura, Mitsutaka Mezaki, Yoshihiro Tikhonov, Alexei Senoo, Haruki |
author_sort | Hattori, Shunji |
collection | PubMed |
description | We investigated the characteristics of extracellular matrix (ECM) in the soft tissue of two frozen baby woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) that died and were buried in Siberian permafrost approximately 40,000 years ago. Morphological and biochemical analyses of mammoth lung and liver demonstrated that those soft tissues were preserved at the gross anatomical and histological levels. The ultrastructure of ECM components, namely a fibrillar structure with a collagen-characteristic pattern of cross-striation, was clearly visible with transmission and scanning electron microscopy. Type I and type IV collagens were detected by immunohistochemical observation. Quantitative amino acid analysis of liver and lung tissues of the baby mammoths indicated that collagenous protein is selectively preserved in these tissues as a main protein. Type I and type III collagens were detected as major components by means of liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis after digestion with trypsin. These results indicate that the triple helical collagen molecule, which is resistant to proteinase digestion, has been preserved in the soft tissues of these frozen mammoths for 40,000 years. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8555803 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-85558032021-10-30 Preservation of collagen in the soft tissues of frozen mammoths Hattori, Shunji Kiriyama-Tanaka, Tomomi Kusubata, Masashi Taga, Yuki Ebihara, Testuya Kumazawa, Yuki Imai, Katsuyuki Miura, Mitsutaka Mezaki, Yoshihiro Tikhonov, Alexei Senoo, Haruki PLoS One Research Article We investigated the characteristics of extracellular matrix (ECM) in the soft tissue of two frozen baby woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) that died and were buried in Siberian permafrost approximately 40,000 years ago. Morphological and biochemical analyses of mammoth lung and liver demonstrated that those soft tissues were preserved at the gross anatomical and histological levels. The ultrastructure of ECM components, namely a fibrillar structure with a collagen-characteristic pattern of cross-striation, was clearly visible with transmission and scanning electron microscopy. Type I and type IV collagens were detected by immunohistochemical observation. Quantitative amino acid analysis of liver and lung tissues of the baby mammoths indicated that collagenous protein is selectively preserved in these tissues as a main protein. Type I and type III collagens were detected as major components by means of liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis after digestion with trypsin. These results indicate that the triple helical collagen molecule, which is resistant to proteinase digestion, has been preserved in the soft tissues of these frozen mammoths for 40,000 years. Public Library of Science 2021-10-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8555803/ /pubmed/34714842 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258699 Text en © 2021 Hattori et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Hattori, Shunji Kiriyama-Tanaka, Tomomi Kusubata, Masashi Taga, Yuki Ebihara, Testuya Kumazawa, Yuki Imai, Katsuyuki Miura, Mitsutaka Mezaki, Yoshihiro Tikhonov, Alexei Senoo, Haruki Preservation of collagen in the soft tissues of frozen mammoths |
title | Preservation of collagen in the soft tissues of frozen mammoths |
title_full | Preservation of collagen in the soft tissues of frozen mammoths |
title_fullStr | Preservation of collagen in the soft tissues of frozen mammoths |
title_full_unstemmed | Preservation of collagen in the soft tissues of frozen mammoths |
title_short | Preservation of collagen in the soft tissues of frozen mammoths |
title_sort | preservation of collagen in the soft tissues of frozen mammoths |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8555803/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34714842 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258699 |
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