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

在生物考古和法医环境中，科学家都需要能够根据个人的骨骼遗骸建立个人的生物概况。在这个急切的研究项目中，将开发基于牙釉质化学成分来确定骨骼是雌性还是雄性的方法，并将其与其他性别估计方法进行比较。这项研究将扩大可用于建立生物概况的工具套件，目的是验证和改进方案，并扩大可完成骨骼性别估计的时间段和环境条件的范围。研究结果和方案将与人类学、化学和其他学科的研究人员分享，该项目将支持三个合作研究网站的本科生、研究生和博士后培训和指导。在生物人类学和法医人类学中，无法准确确定亚成人和/或不完整骨骼的性别是一个长期存在的问题。骨学分析和基于DNA的方法学都有其独特的优势和局限性。该项目旨在开发一种可靠、可重复性和灵敏的方法，用于生物考古和法医性别评估，该方法基于对人体最坚硬和保存最好的组织--釉质中性别二型性釉原蛋白多肽的检测。研究人员将优化从釉质中提取多肽的方法，提高性别二相性多肽的灵敏度和量化，建立一个可以尽可能广泛地应用于考古材料的统一方案，并在该领域所做的其他工作的基础上复制和发展。开发的方法将以统计学为基础，导致性别估计存在既定错误和假阳性和负率。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已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，被认为值得支持。

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.