Testosterone in ancient hair from an extinct species

Lee Koren; Devorah Matas; Patrícia Pečnerová; Love Dalén; Alexei Tikhonov; M. Thomas P. Gilbert; Katherine E. Wynne-Edwards; Eli Geffen

doi:10.1111/pala.12391

Testosterone in ancient hair from an extinct species

Lee Koren, Devorah Matas, Patrícia Pečnerová, Love Dalén, Alexei Tikhonov, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Katherine E. Wynne-Edwards, Eli Geffen

The Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences - at Bar-Ilan University

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Testosterone is a key regulator in vertebrate development, physiology and behaviour. Whereas technology allows extraction of a wealth of genetic information from extant as well as extinct species, complementary information on steroid hormone levels may add a social, sexual and environmental context. Hair shafts have been previously used to sequence DNA from >50 000 ¹⁴C years old Siberian woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius). Hair-testing has also been used to measure endogenous steroids in multiple extant species. Here we use small quantities of woolly mammoth hair samples to measure testosterone, and a genomics-based approach to determine sex, in permafrost-preserved mammoths dated to c. 10 000–60 000 ¹⁴C years. Our validated method opens up exciting opportunities to measure multiple steroids in keratinized tissues from extinct populations of mammals. This may be specifically applied to investigating life histories, including the extinct Quaternary megafauna populations whose remains are preserved in the permafrost throughout the northern hemisphere.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	797-802
Number of pages	6
Journal	Palaeontology
Volume	61
Issue number	6
Early online date	13 Aug 2018
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/pala.12391
State	Published - Nov 2018

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Palaeontological Association

Funding

The authors are indebted to Dr Ruokun Zhou from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Calgary for verifying the presence of steroids in mammoth hair via LC-MS/MS. We would like to thank three anonymous referees for their comments which have helped improve our paper, and to Sally Thomas for technical reviewing. LK designed the study, coordinated the study, carried out the analysis, and helped draft the manuscript; DM carried out the molecular lab work, and drafted the manuscript; PP sexed the mammoths; LD, AT, and MTPG collected field data; KEWE carried out the LC-MS/MS analysis and helped to interpret the data, EG conceived of the study and carried out the statistical analyses. All authors gave final approval for publication.

Funders	Funder number
Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Calgary

Keywords

endogenous steroids
hair-testing
testosterone
woolly mammoth

Access to Document

10.1111/pala.12391

Cite this

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AU - Koren, Lee

AU - Matas, Devorah

AU - Pečnerová, Patrícia

AU - Dalén, Love

AU - Tikhonov, Alexei

AU - Gilbert, M. Thomas P.

AU - Wynne-Edwards, Katherine E.

AU - Geffen, Eli

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AB - Testosterone is a key regulator in vertebrate development, physiology and behaviour. Whereas technology allows extraction of a wealth of genetic information from extant as well as extinct species, complementary information on steroid hormone levels may add a social, sexual and environmental context. Hair shafts have been previously used to sequence DNA from >50 000 14C years old Siberian woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius). Hair-testing has also been used to measure endogenous steroids in multiple extant species. Here we use small quantities of woolly mammoth hair samples to measure testosterone, and a genomics-based approach to determine sex, in permafrost-preserved mammoths dated to c. 10 000–60 000 14C years. Our validated method opens up exciting opportunities to measure multiple steroids in keratinized tissues from extinct populations of mammals. This may be specifically applied to investigating life histories, including the extinct Quaternary megafauna populations whose remains are preserved in the permafrost throughout the northern hemisphere.

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KW - hair-testing

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Testosterone in ancient hair from an extinct species

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

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