Horse DNA from 700,000 years ago decoded in fossil
July 2, 2013, Tuesday
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FROM a tiny fossil bone found in the frozen Yukon, the United States, scientists have deciphered the genetic code of an ancient horse about 700,000 years old - nearly 10 times older than any other animal that has had its genome mapped.
Scientists used new techniques and computing to take DNA from a 13-centimeter fossil fragment - mostly contaminated with modern bacteria - and get a good genetic picture of an ancestral horse. The work was published last week in the journal Nature.
Research gives better insight into evolution of one of the most studied mammals. More important, it opens new possibilities for mapping genetic blueprints of all sorts of ancient animals from early human ancestors to mastodons to mammoths to bison, said study lead authors Ludovic Orlando and Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen.
"This breaks the time barrier," Willerslev said.
The previous oldest animal fossil genetically mapped had been an ancient relative of Neanderthals called the Denisovans, from about 75,000 years ago, found in a Siberian cave.
The ancient horse was probably about the size of modern Arabian horses, researchers said. It didn't have the same genes for large muscles needed for racing, and it was larger than researchers once thought.
The new mapping techniques, which involve many technical changes, could be used not just with fossils from frozen areas, but also from more temperate climates. They may eventually allow mapping of animal genomes from 1 million years ago, Orlando said.
Ross MacPhee, curator of mammals at the American Museum of Natural History, who wasn't part of the research, said the accomplishment suggests "there's no reason in substance why we couldn't go back further."
"We keep our fingers crossed that (DNA from) an ancient hominid will be found in one of those cold environments," perhaps even the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans, said Edward Rubin, who heads the US Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute and has deciphered Neanderthal and cave bear DNA.
(AP)
Scientists used new techniques and computing to take DNA from a 13-centimeter fossil fragment - mostly contaminated with modern bacteria - and get a good genetic picture of an ancestral horse. The work was published last week in the journal Nature.
Research gives better insight into evolution of one of the most studied mammals. More important, it opens new possibilities for mapping genetic blueprints of all sorts of ancient animals from early human ancestors to mastodons to mammoths to bison, said study lead authors Ludovic Orlando and Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen.
"This breaks the time barrier," Willerslev said.
The previous oldest animal fossil genetically mapped had been an ancient relative of Neanderthals called the Denisovans, from about 75,000 years ago, found in a Siberian cave.
The ancient horse was probably about the size of modern Arabian horses, researchers said. It didn't have the same genes for large muscles needed for racing, and it was larger than researchers once thought.
The new mapping techniques, which involve many technical changes, could be used not just with fossils from frozen areas, but also from more temperate climates. They may eventually allow mapping of animal genomes from 1 million years ago, Orlando said.
Ross MacPhee, curator of mammals at the American Museum of Natural History, who wasn't part of the research, said the accomplishment suggests "there's no reason in substance why we couldn't go back further."
"We keep our fingers crossed that (DNA from) an ancient hominid will be found in one of those cold environments," perhaps even the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans, said Edward Rubin, who heads the US Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute and has deciphered Neanderthal and cave bear DNA.
(AP)
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