Molecular preservation of the pigment melanin in fossil melanosomes
Molecular preservation of the pigment melanin in fossil melanosomes
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DOI：
10.1038/ncomms1819
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发表时间：
2012-05-01
影响因子：
16.6
通讯作者：
Thiel, Volker
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Lindgren, Johan;Uvdal, Per;Thiel, Volker
化石的羽毛、毛发和眼睛通常被保存为由大量微米大小的球形、扁球形或细长形物体组成的化石痕迹。长期以来，这些微小的结构被认为是嗜角质细菌生物膜的残留物，但最近它们被重新解释为黑素体;也就是说，带颜色的细胞器。解决解释中的这一根本差异至关重要：如果是内源性的，那么化石微体将代表古生物学和进化生物学领域的重大进步，例如，重建皮肤颜色和羽毛颜色模式的可能性。先前已经表明，某些微量元素以有机金属化合物的形式存在于化石中，因此可以用作黑色素的生物标志物。在这里，我们扩大了这方面的知识，证明存在的分子保存的黑色素与黑色素体样微体从始新世早期的丹麦的argentinoid鱼眼分离密切相关。
Fossil feathers, hairs and eyes are regularly preserved as carbonized traces comprised of masses of micrometre-sized bodies that are spherical, oblate or elongate in shape. For a long time, these minute structures were regarded as the remains of biofilms of keratinophilic bacteria, but recently they have been reinterpreted as melanosomes; that is, colour-bearing organelles. Resolving this fundamental difference in interpretation is crucial: if endogenous then the fossil microbodies would represent a significant advancement in the fields of palaeontology and evolutionary biology given, for example, the possibility to reconstruct integumentary colours and plumage colour patterns. It has previously been shown that certain trace elements occur in fossils as organometallic compounds, and hence may be used as biomarkers for melanin pigments. Here we expand this knowledge by demonstrating the presence of molecularly preserved melanin in intimate association with melanosome-like microbodies isolated from an argentinoid fish eye from the early Eocene of Denmark.