Serotaxonomic Investigations of Recent, Pleistocene, and Pliocene Brachiopods

要求提供资金用于对多肽的研究 近代、更新世和上新世的贝壳含量 腕足动物属，试图评估潜在的， 血清分类学和多肽分析的局限性， 不同年代的贝壳化石 我们计划用免疫学方法 看看是否可以检测到交叉反应的差异， 这些腕足动物属，以及它们的总科之间。 初步研究表明这些腕足动物体内有氨基酸 以肽的形式存在于它们的壳材料中。 拟 来研究这些残留在贝壳中的大分子 不同年龄的腕足动物 贝壳化石中的氨基酸 将分析对映异构体作为最近的测试 污染. 对现存材料的研究将有助于调整我们的方法， 对更新世和上新世样本的研究可以帮助我们 时间和成岩作用在预期的 壳蛋白的破坏，并应显示是否类似的工作 越来越古老的贝壳化石很可能证明是有价值的。

Funds are requested for an investigation of the polypeptide content of the shells of Recent, Pleistocene, and Pliocene brachiopod genera in an attempt to assess the potential and limitations of serotaxonomy and polypeptide analysis in extant and fossil shells of varying age. We plan to use immunological methods to see if differences in cross-reactivity can be detected between these brachiopod genera, and between their superfamilies. Preliminary work shows that these brachiopods have amino acids present as peptides within their shell material. It is proposed to investigate these remnant macromolecules in the shells of brachiopods of different ages. Amino acids from the fossil shells will be analysed for enantiomorphy as a test for recent contamination. Work on extant material will serve to fine-tune our methods, and work on Pleistocene and Pliocene samples should help us measure the increasing effect of time and diagenesis in the anticipated destruction of shell protein, and should show whether similar work on increasingly older fossil shells is likely to prove worthwhile.