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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...

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Autores principales: Hattori, Shunji, Kiriyama-Tanaka, Tomomi, Kusubata, Masashi, Taga, Yuki, Ebihara, Testuya, Kumazawa, Yuki, Imai, Katsuyuki, Miura, Mitsutaka, Mezaki, Yoshihiro, Tikhonov, Alexei, Senoo, Haruki
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
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.
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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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