engleski

Neandertal Genomics

A number of techinques have recently been introduced that open up the possibility to perform large-scale genomic analyses from species that became extinct before and during the last Ice Age. The direct large-scale DNA sequencing on the 454 platform from DNA extracted from late Pleistocene cave bears, mammoths and Neandertals has been presented. By taking advantage of the fact that this technique allows the DNA strand sequenced to be determined, we show that cytosine as well as guanidine residues are affected by modifications that cause nucleotide misincorporations during amplification. When these substitutions are disregarded, there is no evidence for detectable levels of other misincorporations. Using this technology, we have determined about one million base pairs from the Neandertal genome and analyzed them in conjunction with the human and chimpanzee genomes. We find that the Neandertal DNA sequences diverged from those of modern humans in the order of 400, 000 years ago. Further analyses are aimed at estimating the size of the population ancestral to modern humans and Neandertals and at adapting this approach to whole-genome sequencing. The prospects of sequencing the entire Neandertal genome were discussed.

Neandertals; genomics

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