I am aware that there are sequenced Calroteidae, I have an internship and I am exploring ways to take a fossil proposed to be part of the Claroteidae family and do a molecular comparison demonstrating this. To my knowledge, DNA and therefore nucleotides degrade easily and will most likely not be usable because the fossil was not preserved (i.e. ember). Is amino acid sequencing even the way to go? I am only familiar with BLAST which gives protein sequencing. Am I even headed in the right direction?
- You are thinking logical. The DNA analysis can be tricky from fossil samples. And so does protein analysis, but sure, relatively easier.
- Blast is a comparison tool and sequencing is a technique, they are totally different and unrelated things.
- You are an intern and learning during your position. I recommend you to discuss all the details with your supervisor, so that you can make the fullest out of your internship.
Check this out...
https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-dinosaur-bone-collagen-20170131-story.html
Instead of focusing on finding DNA, try to extract fragmented remains of proteins/peptides that may have survived in the sample. Those fragment sequences then could be searched against the current extant species amino acid sequence from the selected protein of interest. Collagen was used in this example. I think this field is called paleoproteomics if that helps. Just an idea. :)
What sort of lab equipment do you have access to? Both protein and DNA work would be possible but not easy to do well from challenging samples such as yours. If ANYONE has touched the sample with bare hands at any point in time you will probably get a nice human keratin (skin and hair protein) result.
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