April 28, 2015 UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - What's in a name? The age-old question makes an attempt to understand what someone's name means and how it defines them.
Schreyer Honors College student Maya Evanitsky is taking a unique approach to answering that question. Evanitsky, Dr. George Perry and a team of undergraduate students will research and compare the "original Nittany Lion's" DNA sequence in comparison to other ancient and current lion populations in the United States.
The "original Nittany Lion" that inspired the beloved Penn State icon is a brush lion that was killed in 1856 by farmer Samuel E. Brush. Now extinct, the brush [Nittany] represents more than just Penn State's mascot, it is a small piece of Central Pennsylvania's history.
Sequencing the Nittany Lion Genome
Evanitsky and Dr. Perry opened the "original" Nittany Lion's showcase for the first time on April 13, 2015 to begin the first phase of her research, carefully removing a DNA sample from the lion's leg.
"We're hoping to get DNA from that," said Evanitsky. "The ultimate goal is to sequence the DNA and compare that to DNA sequences in genes of populations of current mountain lions. We're hoping to compare how diverse the species has become and how much they've differentiated over time."
The "Original" Nittany Lion's Preservation
She uses the word "hoping" because this lion has gone through two restorations since its original stuffing of tow. The first restoration took place in 1934 followed by the next in 1992, where various substitutions had to be made to preserve the natural look of the lion using resources like deer fur and polyethylene.
Spending nearly 40 years in the basement of the Carnegie Museum, the lion was displayed in various locations including the St. Louis World's Fair, Chicago World's Fair and the William Penn Museum prior to permanently moving to Happy Valley.
These substitutions make it difficult to remove an authentic sample but Evanitsky is confident that hers is authentic.
The Process
Using the Ancient DNA laboratory at University Park, the junior biochemistry and molecular biology major and her team will compare the DNA from her sample with various other ancient lion samples including mountain lions that currently alive in the western US and Florida.
Potential samples and local displays in the region are located at the Lycoming County Historical Society and Taber Museum as well as the Ecology Lab in Science Hall at Albright College.
The development in ancient DNA methods has made 2015 the right year for this research project.
"Our technology and ancient DNA methods have improved so much that our chance of success is a lot higher than it would have been in the past," explains Dr. Perry. "There are important things that we can learn from studying things that we've lost."
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