Close up of oblique cut of rib of 195 million-year-old Lufengosaurus, showing how the bone was organized around vascular canals that contained blood vessels in the living dinosaur, and ran along the length of the bone. (Image by Robert Reisz)
A new discovery beat the record for the oldest preserved protein by over 100 million years. Researchers used a new technique to examine a 195 million-year-old bone of a Lufengosaurus dinosaur without risking contamination. Their analysis showed traces of preserved collagen in parts of the bone where blood would pass through. Typically, soft tissue in fossils can be challenging to extract without doing significant damage to the sample. This new evidence for oldest preserved collagen shows the possibilities of further analysis of fossilized proteins.
Authors:
Yao-Chang Lee, Cheng-Cheng Chiang, Pei-Yu Huang, Chao-Yu Chung, Timothy D. Huang, Chun-Chieh Wang, Ching-Iue Chen, Rong-Seng Chang, Cheng-Hao Liao & Robert R. Reisz
Corresponding author:
Robert Reisz, University of Toronto Mississauga, Email: robert.reisz@utoronto.ca, Tel: +1 647 830 5364
Original paper published in Nature Communications on January 31, 2017.
