In essence, mycolic acids were extracted by alkaline hydrolysis and converted to anthrylmethyl esters, and five (SK 31, 33, 40, 41 and 47) of the twenty-one ribs tested were shown to contain components corresponding to mycolates (Figure 1) on initial reverse-phase HPLC (rpHPLC), as exemplified by SK 41 (Figure 2). Subjecting the total mycolate fraction from these five ribs to normal-phase HPLC (npHPLC) showed the expected MTB profile of alpha-, methoxy- and ketomycolates, as shown for SK 41 in Figure 3. Analysis of the individual alpha-, methoxy- and ketomycolates from these ribs is shown, for SK 41, in Figure 4 and the other four ribs gave closely similar rpHPLC patterns. The retention times for the archaeological mycolates correlate almost precisely with those from modern MTB (Figure 4). All soils were negative for mycolates.
© Internet Archaeology
URL: http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue5/gernaey/6.html
Last updated: Tue Dec 1 1998