Dino amino acid studies

[NEIL CLARK <NCLARK@museum.gla.ac.uk>]

A colleague of mine has just done an amino acid profile of the 
Scottish dinosaur bone I've been working on (Dougie the Dinosaur 
(sauropod)).  She has been able to detect the following amino acids in 
reasonable concentrations (in pmol);

Glycine  31
Threonine  21
Alanine  122
Proline  8
Methionine  13
Leucine  111

(amongst others)

Does anyone else on this list work on similar studies?  We have a 
number of other large molecules present in the analyses and the 
sample will be looked at with a mass spec to try and identify some of 
the other peaks.

BTW amino acids are found in most fossil material as far back as the 
Cambrian and beyond.  So it is not unusual that amino acids should 
be found in dinosaurs as some are quite stable molecules.  DNA is 
another story altogether.

Neil


Neil Clark
Curator of Palaeontology
Hunterian Museum
University of Glasgow
email: NCLARK@museum.gla.ac.uk

Mountains are found in erogenous zones.
(Geological Howlers - ed. WDI Rolfe)