engleski

centrala bolnice 378 71 11 – za EMNG – 378 72 79 privatno EMNG 377 69 96

We report a complete Neandertal mitochondrial (mt) genome sequence, retrieved from a 38, 000-year old Croatian Neandertal. Using the 454 sequencing platform we have generated 78 Mb of potential Neandertal DNA sequence from 0.2 g of bone. We identified 8, 341 mtDNA fragments, yielding 34.9-fold coverage of the mitochondrial genome. To ensure the correctness of the assembled mtDNA sequence we additionally amplified and cloned 33 positions where coverage was low or nucleotide homopolymers resulted in sequence ambiguities. Using four Neandertal-specific transversions we find that 229 of 230 mtDNA fragments retrieved carry the Neandertal-specific allele, showing that the rate of modern human contamination in the extract is low. Analysis of the mitochondrial genome sequence confirms that the Neandertal mtDNA falls outside the variation of modern human mtDNAs and allows an estimate of the human-Neandertal divergence of 650, 000&plusmn ; ; 150, 000 years before present. The Neandertal mitochondrial genome allows us to identify mtDNA changes that occurred during the last half million years on the human lineage. One gene shows an unusual amount of substitutions that may warrant investigations into their possible physiological effects on mitochondrial energy metabolism.

Neandertal; DNA

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