Fresnais Margaux, Richardin Pascale, Sepúlveda Marcela, Leize-Wagner Emmanuelle, Charrié-Duhaut Armelle
1 Laboratoire de spectrométrie de masse des interactions et des systèmes (LSMIS), Université de Strasbourg , CNRS, CMC UMR 7140, Strasbourg, France .
2 Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France (C2RMF) , Palais du Louvre, Paris, France .
OMICS. 2017 Jul;21(7):361-370. doi: 10.1089/omi.2017.0067. Epub 2017 Jun 15.
Omics technologies have far-reaching applications beyond clinical medicine. A case in point is the analysis of ancient hair samples. Indeed, hair is an important biological indicator that has become a material of choice in archeometry to study the ancient civilizations and their environment. Current characterization of ancient hair is based on elemental and structural analyses, but only few studies have focused on the molecular aspects of ancient hair proteins-keratins-and their conservation state. In such cases, applied extraction protocols require large amounts of raw hair, from 30 to 100 mg. In the present study, we report an optimized new proteomic approach to accurately identify archeological hair proteins, and assess their preservation state, while using a minimum of raw material. Testing and adaptation of three protocols and of nano liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (nanoLC-MS/MS) parameters were performed on modern hair. On the basis of mass spectrometry data quality, and of the required initial sample amount, the most promising workflow was selected and applied to an ancient archeological sample, dated to about 3880 years before present. Finally, and importantly, we were able to identify 11 ancient hair proteins and to visualize the preservation state of mummy's hair from only 500 μg of raw material. The results presented here pave the way for new insights into the understanding of hair protein alteration processes such as those due to aging and ecological exposures. This work could enable omics scientists to apply a proteomic approach to precious and rare samples, not only in the context of archeometrical studies but also for future applications that would require the use of very small amounts of sample.
组学技术在临床医学之外有着广泛的应用。一个恰当的例子是对古代毛发样本的分析。事实上，毛发是一种重要的生物指标，已成为考古测量学中研究古代文明及其环境的首选材料。目前对古代毛发的表征基于元素和结构分析，但只有少数研究关注古代毛发蛋白质——角蛋白——的分子层面及其保存状态。在这种情况下，应用的提取方案需要大量的原始毛发，从30毫克到100毫克不等。在本研究中，我们报告了一种优化的新蛋白质组学方法，能够在使用最少原材料的情况下准确鉴定考古毛发蛋白质，并评估其保存状态。我们在现代毛发上对三种方案以及纳升液相色谱-串联质谱（nanoLC-MS/MS）参数进行了测试和调整。基于质谱数据质量以及所需的初始样本量，我们选择了最有前景的工作流程并将其应用于一个距今约3880年的古代考古样本。最后，也是重要的一点，我们仅从500微克的原材料中就成功鉴定出了11种古代毛发蛋白质，并直观呈现了木乃伊毛发的保存状态。此处呈现的结果为深入理解毛发蛋白质的变化过程（如因衰老和生态暴露导致的变化）开辟了新途径。这项工作能够使组学科学家将蛋白质组学方法应用于珍贵和稀有的样本，不仅在考古测量学研究中，也适用于未来需要使用极少量样本的应用场景。
