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Nationalgeographic.co.id—In a study report published last month (September 24, 2021) in the journal Communications Biology, a group of researchers claim to have extracted molecules from dinosaur fossils. This molecule they believe has the potential to contain the oldest DNA in the world because it comes from a 125 million-year-old dinosaur fossil.
By far, the oldest animal DNA ever found belongs to a one-million-year-old woolly mammoth. DNA is a relatively fragile molecule, and dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. So so far the idea of getting DNA from dinosaurs is something more science fiction.
In a study report in Communications Biology In this study, paleontologists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature extracted and declassified thigh cartilage from the 125-million-year-old dinosaur Caudipteryx. This dinosaur lived in the Jehol Biota during the Early Cretaceous period. Jehol Biota is an area that is now part of the coastal province of Liaoning in northeastern China.
According to a news release from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the femur cells contained preserved cell nuclei and chromatin fragments that could potentially store the dinosaur’s DNA. The scientists obtained this material by staining the extracted cells with hematoxylin, a chemical capable of binding to cell nuclei.
Also Read: Polynesian Migration Path Puzzle Solved Through DNA Analysis
The research team then compared the staining of Caudipteryx cartilage with chicken cartilage samples. They noted that the staining of the fossil resembled the cell nuclei and chromatin of chicken cells.
“The preservation of the fossils at Jehol Biota is remarkable because of the fine volcanic ash that buried the carcass and preserved it down to the cellular level,” said Li Zhiheng of IVPP, one of the authors of the study report. The Scientist.
The study report paper also showed that these components of the cell nucleus were preserved more effectively in fossil cartilage tissue than other tissue types.
However, a number of other scientists voiced the need for caution or skepticism about the findings. Evan Saitta, a researcher with Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, told Gizmodo that the microbes in the fossils could be mistaken for the genetic material of the dinosaurs themselves.
Also Read: The Oldest Dinosaur Herd Found, There Are Embryos in Some of the Eggs!
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