Mackie Meaghan, Hendy Jessica, Lowe Abigail D, Sperduti Alessandra, Holst Malin, Collins Matthew J, Speller Camilla F
BioArCh, Department of Archaeology, University of York, York, UK.
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany.
Sci Technol Archaeol Res. 2017 Aug 11;3(1):74-86. doi: 10.1080/20548923.2017.1361629. eCollection 2017.
Proteomic analysis of dental calculus is emerging as a powerful tool for disease and dietary characterisation of archaeological populations. To better understand the variability in protein results from dental calculus, we analysed 21 samples from three Roman-period populations to compare: 1) the quantity of extracted protein; 2) the number of mass spectral queries; and 3) the number of peptide spectral matches and protein identifications. We found little correlation between the quantity of calculus analysed and total protein identifications, as well as no systematic trends between site location and protein preservation. We identified a wide range of individual variability, which may be associated with the mechanisms of calculus formation and/or post-depositional contamination, in addition to taphonomic factors. Our results suggest dental calculus is indeed a stable, long-term reservoir of proteins as previously reported, but further systematic studies are needed to identify mechanisms associated with protein entrapment and survival in dental calculus.
牙结石的蛋白质组学分析正逐渐成为一种用于考古人群疾病和饮食特征描述的有力工具。为了更好地理解牙结石蛋白质结果的变异性，我们分析了来自三个罗马时期人群的21个样本，以比较：1）提取蛋白质的量；2）质谱查询的数量；3）肽谱匹配和蛋白质鉴定的数量。我们发现分析的牙结石量与总蛋白质鉴定之间几乎没有相关性，而且在遗址位置和蛋白质保存之间也没有系统的趋势。除了埋藏学因素外，我们还发现了广泛的个体变异性，这可能与牙结石形成和/或沉积后污染的机制有关。我们的结果表明，牙结石确实如先前报道的那样，是蛋白质稳定、长期的储存库，但需要进一步的系统研究来确定与蛋白质在牙结石中截留和存活相关的机制。
