Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State University, , Campus Box 8208, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, , 11 West Jones Street, Raleigh, NC 27601, USA, Museum of Paleontology, University of California, , Berkeley, CA 94720, USA, Department of Material Sciences and Engineering, University of California, , Berkeley, CA 94720, USA, CHORI (Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute), , 5700 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way, Oakland, CA 94609, USA, Department of Molecular and Structural Biochemistry, North Carolina State University, , Raleigh, NC 27695-7622, USA, Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, , Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Proc Biol Sci. 2013 Nov 27;281(1775):20132741. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2013.2741. Print 2014 Jan 22.
The persistence of original soft tissues in Mesozoic fossil bone is not explained by current chemical degradation models. We identified iron particles (goethite-αFeO(OH)) associated with soft tissues recovered from two Mesozoic dinosaurs, using transmission electron microscopy, electron energy loss spectroscopy, micro-X-ray diffraction and Fe micro-X-ray absorption near-edge structure. Iron chelators increased fossil tissue immunoreactivity to multiple antibodies dramatically, suggesting a role for iron in both preserving and masking proteins in fossil tissues. Haemoglobin (HB) increased tissue stability more than 200-fold, from approximately 3 days to more than two years at room temperature (25°C) in an ostrich blood vessel model developed to test post-mortem 'tissue fixation' by cross-linking or peroxidation. HB-induced solution hypoxia coupled with iron chelation enhances preservation as follows: HB + O2 > HB - O2 > -O2 >> +O2. The well-known O2/haeme interactions in the chemistry of life, such as respiration and bioenergetics, are complemented by O2/haeme interactions in the preservation of fossil soft tissues.
目前的化学降解模型无法解释中生代化石骨骼中原始软组织的存在。我们使用透射电子显微镜、电子能量损失光谱、微 X 射线衍射和 Fe 微 X 射线吸收近边结构，鉴定了从两种中生代恐龙中回收的软组织中与铁相关的颗粒（针铁矿-αFeO(OH)）。铁螯合剂显著增加了化石组织对多种抗体的免疫反应性，这表明铁在保护和掩盖化石组织中的蛋白质方面都发挥了作用。血红蛋白 (HB) 使组织稳定性提高了 200 多倍，在开发的鸵鸟血管模型中，室温（25°C）下的半衰期从大约 3 天延长至两年以上，该模型用于通过交联或过氧化作用来测试死后的“组织固定”。HB 诱导的溶液缺氧与铁螯合相结合可增强保存效果：HB + O2 > HB - O2 > -O2 >> +O2。生命化学中众所周知的 O2/haeme 相互作用，如呼吸和生物能学，与化石软组织保存中的 O2/haeme 相互作用互补。
