Original articleProtein identification and localization using mass spectrometry and staining tests in cross-sections of polychrome samples
Section snippets
Research aims
The research results presented in this paper are part of a larger study of materials and techniques used in a Czech Medieval polychrome sculpture illustrating “The Mourning of Jesus Christ” (16th century), that underwent partial conservation treatments in the Restoration Department of the Moravian Gallery in Brno in 1999 and complex restoration (consolidation, cleaning, and removal of over-paints, woodcarving accessories, binders, retouching) with the support of the Ministry of Culture from the
Sampling
The sculpture (Fig. 1), owned by the Convent of Minorits in Brno (Czech Republic), is a complex work of figurative woodcarving (illustrating the theme of “The Mourning of Jesus Christ”, comprising 11 male and female characters standing around the laid body of Christ after the Descent from the Cross) shaped in high relief (97 cm × 136 cm × 29 cm), made of four massive lime wood blocks together with several supplements dating around the year 1520. In Fig. 1 the image of the entire sculpture is given and
Results and discussions
The cross-section observations under visible and fluorescent light display a different structure and complexity of the layered composites according the area of sampling (Fig. 3, Fig. 4): from one or two layers of paint (mostly in case of incarnations–samples M1, M2, M8, and M10) over the thick ground layer to five or six coloured layers (as the case of samples taken from garments – M4, M5, M6, M7, M11 – where probably over-painting was done in the past and had to be removed by restoration
Conclusions
The presented work proposes a novel simple, relatively fast and reliable protocol for identification and mapping of animal glue and egg binders in polychrome samples with complex stratigraphical structures by the combination of MALDI-TOF MS and staining tests (one visible stain and one fluorescent stain). Surprisingly, the sensitivity of MALDI-TOF MS increases in the tests done on cross-sections, where the achievable amount of proteins was predicted lower than in the tests on bigger quantities
Acknowledgements
This work has been supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT/MCTES) in Portugal through grant No. PEst-C/EQB/LA0006/2011 and grant No. PTDC/EAT-EAT/116700/2010; by EU funds, project Operational Program Prague–Competitiveness (OP PC) CZ.2.16/3.100/22197, Grant No. 000746 from the Czech Ministry of Culture 000746, Grant No. 6046137305 from the Czech Ministry of Education, and by Financial support from Specific University Research (MSMT No. 21/2011) in Prague.
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