Mammoth Hair: Stability of α-Keratin Structure and Constituent Proteins

Abstract

Hair from a woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius, age about 32,000 years) retains the ordered structure characteristic of alpha-keratins, but the proteins of this hair differ in composition from and are smaller than similar proteins isolated from other keratins, for example, elephant hair. It is suggested that these changes have been caused by limited proteolysis.