CR2P, Centre de Recherche sur la Paléodiversité et les Paléoenvironnements, UMR 7207, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Sorbonne Université, CNRS, 8 Rue Buffon, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France.
MONARIS, De la Molécule aux Nano-Objets: Réactivité, Interactions et Spectroscopies, UMR 8233, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, 4 Place Jussieu, 75005 Paris, France.
Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2019 Feb 5;208:73-84. doi: 10.1016/j.saa.2018.09.050. Epub 2018 Sep 28.
Shells of the three subphyla of extant and extinct representatives of the phylum Brachiopoda display coloured patterns with diverse shapes and at different degrees. These colourations are readily visible in natural light but are best revealed under UV light for the fossils concerned. To identify these pigments, Raman spectroscopy has been used for the first time on brachiopod shells. The widespread identified pigments belong to the carotenoid family, best represented in all the animal kingdom, the second one concerns the melanin/melanin-like pigments and, surprisingly, additional molecules of the cytochrome family are revealed for the first time in one of the brachiopod shells studied. The putative functions of shell pigmentation, still under debate, are discussed.
现存和已灭绝腕足动物门代表的三个亚门的壳都显示出具有不同形状和不同程度的彩色图案。这些颜色在自然光下很容易看到，但在有关化石的紫外线下则更容易显现。为了识别这些色素，拉曼光谱首次用于腕足动物的壳。已经鉴定出的广泛存在的色素属于类胡萝卜素家族，在所有动物王国中都有很好的代表性，第二种是关于黑色素/类似黑色素的色素，令人惊讶的是，在研究的一种腕足动物壳中首次发现了细胞色素家族的其他分子。目前仍在争论的壳色素的潜在功能也在讨论中。
