Real-life Jurassic Park? Ancient rhino proteins found — dino discoveries may be coming

Economic Times

16-07-2025

How did they unlock proteins from a 24‑million‑year‑old tooth?
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What did the protein analysis reveal about rhino evolution?
Can this method work on dinosaur fossils?
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Researchers have taken protein sequences from a 24-million-year-old rhino tooth found in the Canadian Arctic. This is the oldest detailed protein data ever found. This new development in paleoproteomics lets scientists look at ancient life in ways that DNA can't. Researchers are exploring the possibility of studying dinosaur proteins in the future.This gave them new information about evolution and confirmed that proteins can stay intact for a long time.This milestone means that protein studies might one day include dinosaurs, which would change the way paleontologists and researchers study evolution over long periods of time.Proteins found in the 24 million-year-old tooth, discovered in the Canadian Arctic, are ten times older than the oldest known DNA, as per a report by CNN.Ryan Sinclair Paterson, a postdoctoral researcher at the Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, who oversaw the Canadian study, stated, "Enamel is so hard it protects these proteins over deep time (long time scales)." 'It's essentially like a vault. What we did was unlock this vault, at least for this specific fossil.'Archaeological science has been transformed by the study of ancient DNA found in bones, fossils, and soil. This research has revealed previously undiscovered human species, ice age creatures, lost empires, and enigmatic clans.For fossils that are millions of years old and currently outside the chronological range of ancient DNA, ancient proteins hold out the promise of a similar revolution.The study highlights the vast potential of the field, known as paleoproteomics, and was published on July 9 in the scientific journal Nature.Made up of amino acid sequences, proteins are stronger than DNA, which is a brittle molecule that breaks down rather quickly. The evolutionary history , diet, and occasionally even the sex of a fossil can be inferred from proteins, despite the fact that they offer less specific information.Demonstrating that it is not a single sample or lucky strike is the next step. Even the study of dinosaurs may be possible if we push it further.The scientists extracted sequences from seven proteins that were retained inside the fossilized rhino tooth, working with colleagues from the University of York and the Canadian Museum of Nature. In order to learn more about the rhino's evolutionary history, the scientists compared the sequences to those of extinct and extant cousins. About 41 million to 25 million years ago, it split off from the same family as extant rhinos, according to the findings.According to separate studies that were published in the journal Nature, biomolecules may be able to endure in hot, tropical climates for millions of years. Harvard University and the Museum Conservation Institute of the Smithsonian Institution discovered that even in hot tropical climates, scientists can recover prehistoric proteins that can provide clues about the relationships between extinct elephants and rhinos and their contemporary counterparts.Although the details in the Kenyan proteins were not as comprehensive as those in the Canadian fossil, the authors stated that the fact that they were identified in enamel tissues in one of the warmest places on Earth offers hope for the discovery of proteins in far earlier fossils.Proteins found preserved in fossils in tropical latitudes have been described as "shocking" by researchers at the University of Ghent in Belgium. The methods applied to the Kenyan fossils, according to Maarten Dhaenens, a researcher at the University of Ghent, was intricate and less proven. The results, he said, were more difficult to interpret and needed a more complete evaluation.Evan Saitta, a paleontologist and research associate at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, described the discovery of proteins retained in fossils from tropical latitudes as "shocking" and stated that the results need confirmation. He says that if this is true, it should be easy to replicate, and we should find enamel peptides (proteins) at every fossil site on Earth."The Canadian fossil's research was more convincing," said Matthew Collins, McDonald Professor in Palaeoproteomics at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, as per a report by CNN.He pointed out that as dinosaur fossils are far older than the fossils in the two studies and primarily originate from a time when the global climate was hot and there were no ice caps, it is unlikely that protein information could be extracted from a dinosaur tooth. Generally speaking, dinosaur fossils have been exposed to significantly more geothermal heat and are buried much deeper.The thickness of the enamel of dinosaur teeth may have been insufficient to store proteins.Though there were other intriguing issues to look into first, such how mammals took over the earth after the dinosaurs died, Cappellini and Paterson hypothesized that it may be possible to extract valuable protein information from dinosaur remains within ten years.The study pushes the limits of evolutionary biology by getting proteins out of a rhino tooth that is millions of years older than the oldest DNA evidence.If this breakthrough works out, it could lead to a new era where the molecular secrets of the Mesozoic—and maybe even Jurassic Park, might not just be made up stories.This isn't just a cool thing that happened in the lab. It's a strong reminder that Earth's past isn't just bones and stones; it's molecules that are deeply coded and waiting for the right key to unlock their stories.These are the oldest protein sequences ever decoded, 10 times older than DNA's preservation limit, providing a unique insight into deep evolutionary history.Potentially, yes. Because enamel preserves proteins exceptionally well, researchers believe we could recover dinosaur proteins from suitable fossils in less than a decade.