Immunoreactive collagen in avian and mammalian fossils

Rowley, M. J.; Rich, Patricia Vickers; Rich, Tom H; Mackay, Ian R.

doi:10.1007/bf00368777

Cited by 17 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Immunological albumin reactions in fossils about 1.6 Myr old, although surprising, are not entirely improbable, in the light of the observation with electron microscopy of collagen fibrils in a 200-Myr-old dinosaur bone (Wykoff, 1972) and immunological reactions in 70-Myr-old molluscs (De Jong et al, 1974); osteocalcin has been extracted from 13-Myr-old fossil bovid bones and from 30-Myr-old fossil rodent teeth (Ulrich et al, 1987); collagen has been reported in a 10-Myr-old unidentified bone (Rowley et al, 1986); and species-specific serum factors have been detected in a 0.5-Myr-old Homo erectus fossil (Lowenstein, 1981) and in 8-Myr-old Ramapithecus and Sivapithecus specimens (Lowenstein, 1983).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Immunospecificity of albumin detected in 1.6 million-year-old fossils from Venta Micena in Orce, Granada, Spain

Borja

García-Pacheco

Olivares

et al. 1997

Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

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The Orce skull fragment from southern Spain, dated at 1.6 Myr, has been a subject of heated controversy since it was first discovered in 1982. If it is hominid, as its discoverers contend, it is by far the oldest fossil hominid yet found in western Europe and implies that human populations settled this region much earlier than was previously realized. Numerous stone artifacts found at the Orce sites provide evidence that hominids were indeed present there in the Lower Pleistocene. Some paleontologists maintain that the 8 cm diameter occipital fragment is from a horse, not a hominid. Two independent investigations of the residual proteins in the skull were undertaken, one at the University of Granada in Spain, the other at the University of California, San Francisco. Two immunological methods of comparable sensitivity were employed for detection and species attribution of protein extracted from fossil bone: the Granada team used an enzyme-linked-immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and the UCSF team used a radioimmunoassay (RIA). Both teams obtained reactions characteristic of human albumin in the Orce skull and horse albumin in some of the horse fossils. These results support the lithic evidence that hominids were living in Andalusia 1.6 million years ago.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Immunospecificity of albumin detected in 1.6 million-year-old fossils from Venta Micena in Orce, Granada, Spain

Borja

García-Pacheco

Olivares

et al. 1997

Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

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“…Downs & Lowenstein (1995) found that archaeological blood residues generally could not be identified reliably. Nevertheless, whereas proteins cannot be clearly identified on artefacts only a thousand years old, these biomolecules can survive under the right conditions and be characterized in much more ancient fossil bones (Wykoff, 1972;Lowenstein, 1981;Lowenstein, 1983;Rowley et al, 1986;Ulrich et al, 1987). These reports clearly show that proteins from some fossil bones, although fragmentary, can persist and retain enough of their immunological properties to provide usable genetic information for periods of millions of years.…”

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confidence: 99%

Hominid Status of the Orce Cranial Fragment Reasserted

Gibert

Campillo

Arqués

et al. 1998

Journal of Human Evolution

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“…We also show that the immunoreactivity of this protein was consistent with the species assignation of the fossils. The efficiency of DB in detecting proteins from fossils was first reported by Rowley et al (1986), who identified collagen in a 10-Myr-old fossil. The small amount of sample needed for DB and QDB (5 l) also makes these methods appropriate for studies of proteins from fossils, especially when the amount of sample available is very small.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Lowenstein, using a radioimmunoassay (RIA), detected species-specific collagen and serum factors in fossils as old as a 0•5-Myr-old Homo erectus, a 1•9-Myr-old Australopithecus robustus (Lowenstein, 1981) and an 8-Myr-old Ramapithecus (Lowenstein, 1983). Furthermore, collagen has been found by dot-blotting in a 10-Myr-old bone (Rowley et al, 1986); and osteocalcin has been extracted from 13-Myr-old fossil bovid bones, from 30-Myr-old fossil rodent teeth (Ullrich et al, 1987), and from 75-Myr-old dinosaur bones (Muyzer et al, 1992). Osteocalcin from the fossil bovid bones still retained functionally active gammacarboxyglutamic acid residues after 13 Myr (Ulrich et al, 1987).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%