EAGER: Collaborative Research: Proteomic Detection of Amelogenin Proteins for Biological Profiles

在生物考古学和法医学背景下，科学家需要能够根据遗骸建立个人的生物特征。在这个EAGER研究项目中，将开发基于牙釉质化学的确定骨骼是女性还是男性的方法，并与其他性别估计方法进行比较。 这项研究将扩大用于建立生物特征的现有工具套件，目的是验证和改进方案，并扩大可以完成骨骼性别估计的时间段和环境条件的范围。研究结果和协议将与人类学，化学和其他学科的研究人员分享，该项目将支持本科生，研究生和博士后学生培训和指导三个合作研究地点。 无法准确确定亚成体和/或不完整骨骼的性别是生物人类学和法医人类学中的一个长期问题。骨骼学分析和基于DNA的方法都有特定的优势和局限性。该项目旨在开发一种强大的，可重复的，和敏感的方法，生物考古学和法医性别估计的基础上检测人类牙釉质中的两性异形釉原蛋白肽，最硬的和保存最好的组织在人体内。研究人员将优化从牙釉质中提取肽的方法，提高性二态肽的灵敏度和定量，建立一个统一的协议，可以尽可能广泛地应用于考古材料，并复制和建立在该领域所做的其他工作。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

In both bioarchaeological and forensic settings, scientists need to be able to establish the biological profiles of individuals based on their skeletal remains. In this EAGER research project, methods for determining whether a skeleton was female or male based on the chemistry of tooth enamel will be developed and compared to other methods of sex estimation. The research will expand the available suite of tools for establishing biological profiles, with the aims of validating and improving protocols and expanding the range of time periods and environmental conditions in which skeletal sex estimation can be accomplished. Findings and protocols will be shared with researchers in anthropology, chemistry, and other disciplines, and the project will support undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral student training and mentoring across the three collaborative research sites. The inability to accurately determine the sex of sub-adult and/or incomplete skeletons is a persistent problem in biological anthropology and forensic anthropology. Both osteological analysis and DNA-based methodology have particular strengths and limitations. This project seeks to develop a robust, reproducible, and sensitive method for bioarchaeological and forensic sex estimation based on the detection of sexually dimorphic amelogenin peptides in human enamel, the hardest and best preserved tissue in the human body. The investigators will optimize peptide extraction from enamel, increase the sensitivity and quantification of sexually dimorphic peptides, establish a uniform protocol that can be applied as broadly as possible to archaeological material, and replicate and build on other work done in the field. The approach developed will be statistically grounded and result in sex estimation with established error and false positive and negative rates.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.