ZooMS (Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry)
Definition
A peptide mass fingerprinting method using collagen fragment masses to identify bone to species level; applicable to burned bone samples where conventional DNA typing fails due to collagen survival at temperatures below full calcination.
- Method
- Peptide mass fingerprinting of bone collagen
- Identifies
- Species from bone fragments
- Key use case
- Burned bone where DNA typing fails
- Requires
- Surviving collagen (below full calcination)
Common questions
Why does ZooMS work on samples where DNA analysis does not?+
Collagen peptides are more thermally stable than DNA, so they can survive heating that has already degraded nuclear and mitochondrial DNA past the point of reliable typing, as long as the bone has not been fully calcined.
What can ZooMS not tell an investigator that DNA can?+
It resolves species-level identity from collagen peptide markers but cannot distinguish individuals within a species, so it is a species-identification tool rather than a substitute for individualising DNA profiling.
Related terms
- Calcined Bone
- Bone heated to above approximately 700°C, resulting in complete combustion of the organic component (collagen), leaving only mineral hydroxyapatite; characterised by white...
- Crazing
- A mosaic network of intersecting surface fissures on burned bone, produced by differential contraction of the outer bone surface relative to the...
- Delamination
- The separation of the outer table of bone from the underlying diploe or cortex in curved sheets during green-bone burning; produced by...
- Dry Bone Fracture Pattern
- Straight, longitudinal fractures running parallel to the long axis of a bone, following the Haversian structural directions; characteristic of bone burned after...
- Green Bone Fracture Pattern
- Curved transverse fractures running approximately perpendicular to the long axis of a bone, with a stepped or warped cross-sectional profile; characteristic of...
- Hydroxyapatite (HA)
- The calcium phosphate mineral [Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2] that comprises approximately 70 per cent of bone mass; survives fire at all temperature stages, sintering and...
- NFPA 921
- US National Fire Protection Association Guide for Fire and Explosion Investigations. The internationally accepted methodology Indian fire investigators and SFSL fire divisions...
- Pope-Smith Framework
- The 2004 analytical framework distinguishing perimortem from postmortem fire exposure using fracture geometry, cross-section colour uniformity, periosteal behaviour, and anatomical integrity; explicitly...
- Shipman Colour Stages
- The five-stage colour classification (yellow-tan, brown, black, blue-grey, white) published by Patricia Shipman and colleagues in 1984, corresponding approximately to temperature ranges...