Deep Paleoproteotyping and Microtomography Revealed No Heart Defect nor Traces of Embalming in the Cardiac Relics of Blessed Pauline Jaricot

Virginie Bourdin (1, 2) , Philippe Charlier (2, 1) , Stéphane Crevat , Lofti Slimani (3) , Catherine Chaussain (3) , Mélodie Kielbasa (4) , Olivier Pible (4) , Jean Armengaud (4)

1 MQBJC - Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac
2 LAAB - Laboratoire Anthropologie, Archéologie, Biologie
3 URP 2496 - Pathologies, imagerie et biothérapies oro-faciales = Orofacial pathologies, imaging and biotherapies
4 MTS - Médicaments et Technologies pour la Santé

Scientific examination of the heart of Blessed Pauline Jaricot—a French missionary figure—was carried out in 2022. As tandem mass spectrometry proteotyping has proven to be valuable to obtain the broad taxonomic repertoire of a given sample without any a priori information, we aimed at exploring the conditions of preservation of the relics and possible conditions of death. Metaproteomics and high-resolution microtomography imaging approaches were combined. A dataset comprising 6731 high-resolution MS/MS spectra was acquired and 968 of these spectra could be assigned to specific peptidic biomolecules. Based on the taxonomical information encompassed by the identified peptide sequences, 5 phyla were identified amongst eukaryota (94% of the biomass): Ascomycota (55%), with the species Aspergillus versicolor, Trichophyton mentagrophytes and Aspergillus glaucus, corresponding to expected cadaverous fungal flora; Chordata (42%), represented by a unique species, Homo sapiens; Streptophyta (3%); and Arthropoda (traces). Bacteria (6% of the biomass) were poorly represented. No trace of embalming substance could be retrieved, nor any pathogens. Imaging evidenced no heart defect nor embalming traces. No evidence that was inconsistent with natural and spontaneous conservation could be retrieved. This study prefigures the power of modern molecular techniques such as paleoproteotyping coupled to microtomography to gain insight into historical relics.

Mots clés: proteotyping; relics; cardiac characterization; forensic anthropology; mass spectrometry; metaproteomics; micro-CT scan; paleopathology

Domaines: Anthropologie biologique; Génomique, Transcriptomique et Protéomique [q-bio.GN]; Cardiologie et système cardiovasculaire

Virginie Bourdin, Philippe Charlier, Stéphane Crevat, Lofti Slimani, Catherine Chaussain, et al.. Deep Paleoproteotyping and Microtomography Revealed No Heart Defect nor Traces of Embalming in the Cardiac Relics of Blessed Pauline Jaricot. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2023, 24 (3), pp.3011. ⟨10.3390/ijms24033011⟩. ⟨hal-04069285⟩