title: Identification of proteins from 4200-year-old skin and muscle tissue biopsies from ancient Egyptian mummies of the first intermediate period shows evidence of acute inflammation and severe immune response.
abstract: We performed proteomics analysis on four skin and one muscle tissue samples taken from three ancient Egyptian mummies of the first intermediate period, approximately 4200 years old. The mummies were first dated by radiocarbon dating of the accompany-\break ing textiles, and morphologically examined by scanning electron microscopy of additional skin samples. Proteins were extracted, separated on SDS-PAGE (sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis) gels, and in-gel digested with trypsin. The resulting peptides were analysed using nanoflow high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. We identified a total of 230 unique proteins from the five samples, which consisted of 132 unique protein identifications. We found a large number of collagens, which was confirmed by our microscopy data, and is in agreement with previous studies showing that collagens are very long-lived. As expected, we also found a large number of keratins. We identified numerous proteins that provide evidence of activation of the innate immunity system in two of the mummies, one of which also contained proteins indicating severe tissue inflammation, possibly indicative of an infection that we can speculate may have been related to the cause of death.This article is part of the themed issue 'Quantitative mass spectrometry'.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ancient History, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: Jana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: Mehdi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mirzaei
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: Prathiba
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ravishankar
authors.affiliation: Australian Proteome Analysis Facility, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: Dylan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Xavier
authors.affiliation: Department of Dental Hygiene, College of Health Sciences, Eulji University, Sungnam, South Korea.
authors.forename: Do Seon
authors.initials: do S
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy, Seoul National University, College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.
authors.forename: Dong Hoon
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Shin
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Paediatric Sciences, Legal Medicine Section, University of Turin, 10126 Turin, Italy UMR 7268, Laboratoire d'Anthropologie bio-culturelle, Droit, Étique and Santé (ADÉS), Faculté de Médecine de Marseille, 13344 Marseille, France.
authors.forename: Raffaella
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bianucci
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW 2109, Australia paul.haynes@mq.edu.au.
authors.forename: Paul A
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1472-8249
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Haynes
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D001706:Biopsy; D004534:Egypt; D005260:Female; D063990:Gene Ontology; D006801:Humans; D007113:Immunity, Innate; D007249:Inflammation / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D009106:Mummies; D009132:Muscles / Q000378:metabolism*; D040901:Proteomics; D012867:Skin / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology
keywords: ancient proteins; collagen; inflammation; mummification; protein identification