Early Neolithic Pits at Principal Place, Shoreditch, London Borough of Hackney

A group of four pits excavated in the upper Walbrook valley at Principal Place, Shoreditch by MOLA in 2015 produced the largest assemblage of Early Neolithic Bowl pottery recovered to date from the City of London and its immediate surrounds. The Neolithic pits had been fortuitously preserved within part of the northern extramural Roman cemetery of Londinium and conjoining sherds of Bowl pottery were also recovered from the fill of an isolated late Roman cremation. A range of analyses showed that the vessels – comprising essentially Plain Bowl with some Decorated Bowl, the latter incorporating Peterborough Ware traits – were probably locally made and had been used to process dairy products and to stew beef and mutton (though not pork). Radiocarbon dating of the lipids absorbed within the vessel walls – employing a novel technique developed at the University of Bristol – suggest that the pottery was being used in the mid-fourth millennium cal BC. The pits also contained small assemblages of struck flint, fauna (some burnt) and archaeobotanical remains (some intrusive) and may have been filled using material drawn from a long-vanished ‘pre-pit’ source, possibly a midden; they presumably represent episodic activity on the part of semi-sedentary Neolithic communities

Validating differential volatilome profiles in Parkinson’s disease

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Does Storage Post Sampling Influence the Stability of Sebum when used for Mass Spectrometry Metabolomics Analysis?

Sebum is a biofluid excreted by sebaceous glands in the skin. In recent years sebum has been shown to contain endogenous metabolites diagnostic of disease, with remarkable results for Parkinson’s Disease. Given that sebum sampling is facile and non-invasive, its potential for use in clinical biochemistry diagnostic assays should be explored including the parameters for standard operating procedures around collection, transport, and storage. To this aim we have here investigated the reproducibility of mass spectrometry data from sebum in relation to both storage temperature and length of storage. Sebum samples were collected from volunteers and stored for up to four weeks at a range of temperatures: ambient (circa 17 ˚C), -20 ˚C and -80 ˚C. Established extraction protocols were employed and the samples were analysed by two chromatographic mass spectrometry techniques and data investigated using PCA, PLS-DA and ANOVA. We cannot discriminate samples as a function of storage temperature or time stored in unsupervised analysis using data acquired via TD-GC-MS and LC-IM-MS, although the sampling of volatiles was susceptible to batch effects. This study indicates that the requirements for storage and transport of sebum samples that may be used in clinical assays are far less stringent than for liquid samples and indicate that sebum is suitable for remote and at home sampling prior to analysis

Sebum: a window into dysregulation of lipid metabolism in Parkinson’s disease

A metabolomics profiling approach was conducted to identify diagnostic biomarkers of PD from sebum, a non-invasively available biofluid. In this study, we used liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to analyse 274 samples from participants (80 drug naïve PD, 138 medicated PD and 56 well matched control subjects) and detected metabolites that could predict PD phenotype. Partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) models based on this sebum metabolome had correct classification rates of 70.4% and 69.7% to distinguish between drug naïve PD and medicated PD from control, respectively. Variable importance in projection (VIP) scores indicate compounds with significance belonged to sphingolipid, triacylglycerol and fatty acid/ester lipid classes. Pathway enrichment analysis showed alterations in lipid metabolism and mitochondrial dysfunction viz. the carnitine shuttle, sphingolipid metabolism and arachidonic acid metabolism. This study unveiled novel diagnostic sebum-based biomarkers for PD, and provides insight towards our current understanding of the pathogenesis of PD.</p

Paper Spray Ionisation Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry of Sebum Classifies Biomarker Classes for the Diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder and identification of robust biomarkers to complement clinical diagnosis will accelerate treatment options. Here we demonstrate the use of direct infusion of sebum from skin swabs using paper spray ionisation coupled with ion mobility mass spectrometry (PS-IM-MS) to determine the regulation of molecular classes of lipids in sebum that are diagnostic of PD. A PS-IM-MS method for sebum samples that takes three minutes per swab was developed and optimised. The method was applied to skin swabs collected from 150 people and elucidates ~ 4200 features from each subject which were independently analysed. The data included high molecular weight lipids (>600 Da.) that differ significantly in the sebum of people with PD. Putative metabolite annotations of several lipid classes, predominantly triglycerides and larger acyl glycerides, were obtained using accurate mass, tandem mass spectrometry and collision cross section measurements