Fossils have provided scientists with incredible information about the prehistoric world. This information was mainly obtained from the analysis of DNA contained in fossils. A new study shows that the fossils also contain molecules associated with animal metabolism and could provide valuable information about ancient animals and their habitats.
New results published in Natureexamined fossilized animal bones believed to be between 1.3 and 3 million years old. Fossil finds suggest that the animal world was hotter and wetter than our world today.
Read more: 160-million-year-old fossils rewrite the history of dinosaur flight
Finding Hidden Chemicals in Leaky Bones
Metabolomics, the study of metabolites produced by chemical processes in our bodies, has become a valuable tool in modern biomedical science. Researchers in this field have used metabolite data to improve drugs and treatments. But the study of the ancient world relied much more heavily on DNA taken from fossils. Timothy Bromage, co-author of the study and a biologist at New York University, decided to do things differently.
“I've always been interested in metabolism, including the metabolic rate of bone, and I wanted to know if metabolomics could be applied to fossils to study early life. It turns out that bone, including fossilized bone, is loaded with metabolites,” Bromage said in the paper. press release.
Bromage read research showing that collagen, the protein that gives structure to our teeth and skin, can be found in dinosaur bones from thousands of years ago.
“I thought that if collagen was preserved in fossil bonethen perhaps other biomolecules are also protected in the bone microenvironment,” Bromage said.
He hypothesized that metabolites that flow freely through the bloodstream may become trapped within bones during bone formation, passing through spongy pores on the surface of the bones. Bromage's team used an analytical technique called mass spectrometry to study metabolites hidden in bones collected from research excavations in Tanzania, Malawi and South Africa.
To facilitate comparisons with modern times, Bromage's team studied the ancient animals with their modern counterparts in the same areas of Africa. They studied the bones of mice, gerbils, gophers, pigs, antelopes and even an ancient elephant. They found that thousands of metabolites were preserved in the bones.
Ancient diseases, aloe and asparagus
These molecules were often associated with normal cellular functions such as energy metabolism, production and cell growth. Other metabolites have been associated with the animal's response to disease. Fossil bones of a nearly two-million-year-old Tanzanian ground squirrel show signs of infection Trypanosoma brus a parasite that causes sleeping sickness in humans.
“What we found in the squirrel bone is a metabolite that is unique to the biology of this parasite, which releases a metabolite into the host's bloodstream. We also observed a metabolomic anti-inflammatory response in the squirrel, presumably caused by the parasite,” Bromage said.
The team also analyzed metabolites that did not originate in the animals' own tissues, which gave them insight into the animals' diets. This data showed that some animals were feeding on native plants such as asparagus and aloe.
“What this means is that in the case of the squirrel, it ate the aloe and took these metabolites into its bloodstream,” Bromage explained.
This seemingly small signal allowed the researcher to draw many more conclusions about the ancient world of animals.
“Because the environmental conditions in which aloe lives are so specific, we now know more about temperature, precipitation, soil conditions and tree canopy, essentially reconstructing the squirrel's habitat. We can build a story around each of the animals,” Bromage said. These findings are consistent with other analyzes that have tried to find out what prehistoric land it looked like this.
“Using metabolic analysis to study fossils could allow us to reconstruct the environment of the prehistoric world with a new level of detail, as if we were field ecologists in a natural environment today,” Bromage said.
Read more: Mysterious small foot fossil may rewrite hominin history, introducing new human relative
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