{"id":12820,"date":"2019-09-03T17:30:08","date_gmt":"2019-09-03T17:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.acceleratingscience.com\/behindthebench\/?p=12820"},"modified":"2019-09-10T18:41:59","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T18:41:59","slug":"the-journey-of-three-marble-statues-how-metagenomics-helped-to-investigate-a-possible-antiquities-smuggling-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thermofisher.com\/blog\/behindthebench\/the-journey-of-three-marble-statues-how-metagenomics-helped-to-investigate-a-possible-antiquities-smuggling-case\/","title":{"rendered":"The Journey of Three Marble Statues: How Metagenomics Helped To Investigate a Possible Antiquities Smuggling Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-12821 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/admin.acceleratingscience.com\/behindthebench\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/09\/Journeyof3statues-1024x738.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"760\" height=\"548\" srcset=\"https:\/\/admin.acceleratingscience.com\/behindthebench\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/09\/Journeyof3statues-1024x738.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/admin.acceleratingscience.com\/behindthebench\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/09\/Journeyof3statues-300x216.jpg 300w, https:\/\/admin.acceleratingscience.com\/behindthebench\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/09\/Journeyof3statues-768x554.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 760px) 100vw, 760px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>You may be wondering: how are microbiomes and antique marble statues related? It\u2019s not often you find these in the same sentence; however, a recent <a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s13213-019-1446-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">publication<\/a>\u00a0in Annals of Microbiology highlights how a metagenomics approach was used to examine the microbial contaminants on three smuggled artifacts. The article was titled \u201cA time travel story: metagenomic analyses decipher the unknown geographical shift and the storage history of possibly smuggled antique marble statues,\u201d and the aim was to reconstruct the history of the storage of each statue to infer the possible relationship among them, and to elucidate their geographical shifts.<\/p>\n<p>The team concluded that the microbiomes for each statue were very specific, and reflected the history of their storage and travel through different regions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>One statue was male, and it was possible to identify its geographical origin due to the presence of DNA from a tree called Taiwania, found only in Asia.<\/li>\n<li>The other two contained mixes of halophilic and halotolerant bacteria, indicating presence in arid, semi-arid, and marine environments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This work was completed with the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thermofisher.com\/us\/en\/home\/life-science\/sequencing\/dna-sequencing\/microbial-sequencing\/microbial-identification-ion-torrent-next-generation-sequencing.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ion 16S\u2122 Metagenomics Solution<\/a>\u00a0using 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) of prokaryotes, 18S rDNA of eukaryotes, and internal transcribed spacer regions of fungi to identify microbial species on an Ion Torrent\u2122 sequencing platform.<\/p>\n<p>Read the full publication in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s13213-019-1446-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Annals of Microbiology<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thermofisher.com\/us\/en\/home\/life-science\/sequencing\/dna-sequencing\/microbial-sequencing\/microbial-identification-ion-torrent-next-generation-sequencing.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Discover the Ion Torrent targeted NGS solution for metagenomics and microbial sequencing &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Reference:<\/strong> Pi\u00f1ar G, Poyntner C, Tafer H et al. (2019) Ann Microbiol.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s13213-019-1446-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s13213-019-1446-3<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; You may be wondering: how are microbiomes and antique marble statues related? It\u2019s not often you find these in the same sentence; however, a recent publication\u00a0in Annals of Microbiology highlights how a metagenomics approach was used to examine the microbial contaminants on three smuggled artifacts. The article was titled \u201cA time travel story: metagenomic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":12821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"division":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-metagenomics","8":"entry"},"_selected_authors":"","_selected_reviewers":"","acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.8 (Yoast SEO v27.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Journey of Three Marble Statues: How Metagenomics Helped To Investigate a Possible Antiquities Smuggling Case - Behind the Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How are microbiomes and antique marble statues are related? 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