INSPIRE Track 1: Interdisciplinary Approach to Discovery, Analyses and Applications of Informative Ancient Biomolecules

跨学科的方法来发现，分析和应用的信息古代生物分子玛丽施韦策北卡罗莱纳州立大学这个INSPIRE奖是部分资助沉积地质学和古生物学计划和地表地球过程科地球科学司理事会，遗传机制集群理事会生物科学，数学和物理科学理事会的生命过程化学计划、跨EF活动计划、多学科活动办公室和INSPIRE计划。传统智慧认为有一个短暂的（100万年）？寿命？for original原始molecules分子. 最近软组织（血管及其内容物、细胞、柔性基质）和组分分子的恢复表明，在某些条件下，组织和组成它们的分子将比预期的持续时间更长。 在该项目的任期内，研究人员希望证明从古代化石中回收的生物分子可以产生关于进化关系以及灭绝生物其他方面的信息。 也许更重要的是，他们将研究对这些有助于保存的原始分子进行修饰的化学性质，例如不寻常的交联或与环境化学物质的结合;并将研究哪些环境最有可能产生保存这种信息的化石，这将使整个领域受益，因为更好地了解过程和环境将扩大化石的分子研究。 对分子保存的时间限制限制了对较老化石的分子含量的测试，并阻碍了方法的发展。 分子，特别是DNA和蛋白质，不仅提供了进化的信息，而且还提供了生物体功能的信息，也许还提供了进化和自然选择在分子水平上如何工作的信息。 但是，要进行这项研究，需要扩大用于比较的现有数据库。目前，绝大多数基因组和蛋白质组数据来自人类，其次来自哺乳动物。 研究人员建议从非哺乳动物分类群中生成蛋白质组数据，作为该项目的一部分。此外，现有的数据库不考虑由于异构化过程对分子的修饰，因此许多搜索算法将无法识别修饰的分子。 研究人员将通过对单个分类群进行时间点采样，以及通过设计近似于可能导致分子保存的自然过程的实验来解决这个问题。为了理解生命的进化，科学家们依赖于生物体中保留的形态特征，以及来自现存生物体的形态和分子数据。然而，在某些情况下，分子研究给出了一个不同的进化历史的图片比形态特征，当这些冲突，关系不清楚。这项研究挑战了分子寿命的~ 1 Ma时间限制的传统智慧，并有可能将分子进化的记录扩展到更深的时间。

Interdisciplinary Approach to Discovery, Analyses and Applications of Informative Ancient BiomoleculesMary SchweitzerNorth Carolina State UniversityThis INSPIRE award is partially funded by Sedimentary Geology and Paleobiology Program and Surface Earth Processes Section of the Earth Science Division of the Directorate for Geoscience, the Genetic Mechanisms Cluster of the Directorate for Biosciences, the Chemistry of Life Processes Program of the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, the Cross-EF Activities Program, the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities, and the INSPIRE program. Conventional wisdom states there is a short (1 million years) ?life span? for original molecules. Recent recovery of both soft tissues (blood vessels and their contents, cells, flexible matrix), and component molecules indicates that under some conditions, tissues and the molecules comprising them will persist longer than proposed. During the tenure of this project, the researchers hope to demonstrate that biomolecules recovered from ancient fossils can yield information on evolutionary relationships, as well as other aspects of extinct organisms. More importantly perhaps, they will study the chemical nature of modifications to these original molecules that contribute to preservation, such as unusual cross links, or bonding to environmental chemicals; and will study which environments are most likely to yield fossils preserving this kind of information, which will benefit the field at large, because a better understanding of process and environment will expand molecular studies of fossils. The proposed time limit on molecular preservation has limited testing of older fossils for molecular content and hindered methods development. Molecules, especially DNA and proteins, yield information on evolution, but also on the function of organisms, and perhaps on how evolution and natural selection work at the molecular level. But, to undertake this research requires an expansion of existing databases which are used for comparison. Currently, the vast majority of genomic and proteomic data are derived from humans, next from mammals. The researchers propose to generate proteomic data from non-mammalian taxa as part of this project. Additionally, existing databases do not account for modifications to molecules due to preservational processes, and thus many search algorithms will fail to identify modified molecules. The researchers will address this by conducting time-point sampling of a single taxon, and by experiments designed to approximate the natural processes that may result in molecular preservation.To understand the evolution of life, scientists have relied on morphological characters retained in fossilized elements, and both morphological and molecular data derived from extant organisms. However, in some cases, molecular studies give a different picture of evolutionary histories than do morphological features, and when these conflict, relationships are not clear. This research challenges the conventional wisdom of ~1Ma temporal limits of molecular longevity, and has the potential to extend the record of molecular evolution into deep time.