Sunday, October 6, 2013

Ancient DNA: Oldest genome yet sequenced from 700,000 horse

Link to the Nature news article:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v499/n7456/pdf/nature12263.pdf
Link to the research article:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v499/n7456/full/nature12323.html

Orlando et al. generated a 1.12x coverage draft genome of a 700,000-year-old horse, the most ancient fossil ever to have its DNA successfully sequenced! The sample-yeilding specimen was a metapodial bone embedded in permafrost in the Canadian Yukon. The researchers also sequenced the genomes of a 43,000 year old horse, a donkey, a Przewalski's horse, and five modern domestic horses to reconstruct Equus evolutionary history and demography.  They inferred that the MRCA for Equus lived 4-4.5Ma, twice as long as was previously believed. They further were able to identify loci in modern horse genomes showing signatures of recent selection, likely dating to the lineage's domestication.



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