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Most of Woolly Mammoth Genome Reconstructed

Posted by samzenpus on from the I-want-a-cave-bear dept.

geekmansworld writes "From the Washington Post, 'An international team of scientists has reconstructed more than three-quarters of the genome of the woolly mammoth using DNA extracted from balls of hair, the first time this has been accomplished for an extinct species.' Who wants a pet mammoth?"

10 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. Re:When did they die out? by Roland+Piquepaille · · Score: 3, Informative

    My understanding is that the woolly mammoth is one of the first casualty of the infestation Earth by the human species : they went extinct partly because of the warming climate, partly because of overhunting.

  2. Not to mention... by Moraelin · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not to mention, didn't we also have this story about how the proteins affect the transcription too, and the same piece of DNA can be transcribed in a dozen different ways or not at all, depending on how those proteins regulate it? It seems to me like in that case it's like saying they decoded half of it.

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    1. Re:Not to mention... by thepotoo · · Score: 4, Informative

      The big achievement here is the defragmentation of all that DNA

      The folks at 454 Life Sciences made reconstructing a genome from lots of little pieces pretty simple by using an algorithm that looks for common fragments (ex AAGGCTTCTA and CTTCTATCTGG probably go together to form AAGGCTTCTATCTGG).

      They also pretty much pioneered modern sequencing techniques.

      The news here (IMHO) is that we've been able to read the genome of an extinct animal. That is an impressive achievement, a few BP errors notwithstanding. If we have multiple copies of the genome (multiple cells), we should be able to figure out what the correct sequence is (mutations are random, and no two cells will have the same mutations). Hair is not exactly the prime target for sequencing due to its exposure to UV light (UV light wreaks havoc on DNA), but with a little work we should be able to the actual sequence.

      So at the end of the day, the Nobel prize goes to the guy who can figure out how many chromosomes a mammoth had. I'd like to say "just use the number that elephants have" but 7 million years (last common ancester) is easily enough time for chromosome duplication to occur.

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    2. Re:Not to mention... by kmcarr · · Score: 5, Informative

      The folks at 454 Life Sciences made reconstructing a genome from lots of little pieces pretty simple by using an algorithm that looks for common fragments (ex AAGGCTTCTA and CTTCTATCTGG probably go together to form AAGGCTTCTATCTGG).

      Spoken like one who has never actually tried to assemble a genome sequence. Trust me, there is absolutely nothing simple about it. And while 454 Life Sciences (now a division of Roche Diagnostics) pioneered a new technology for generating raw DNA sequence data they did not pioneer the assembly process. Sequence assembly algorithms are a long and well studied problem.

      They also pretty much pioneered modern sequencing techniques.

      While 454 was first to the market with a next-generation sequencing platform they are currently in heavy competition with the Illumina/Solexa platform. And then there is Pacific Bioscience due to release a platform in 2010 which could eat both their lunches.

  3. Re:When did they die out? by Comboman · · Score: 4, Informative

    Dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. Mammoths became extinct about 10,000 years ago, though some scientists believe that there were still pockets of mammoth populations on isolated islands as late as 3500 years ago.

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  4. Re:Not quite there yet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The mammoth mitochondrial genome was decoded a few years ago.

    Mito DNA is much easier to sequence from old samples due to the fact that for every cell which contains one copy of the nuclear genome, there are thousands of copies of the mitochondrial genome.

  5. Re:When did they die out? by Whiteox · · Score: 3, Informative

    They were quite recent: They survived on Wrangle Island (Artic) and St Paul Island (Bearing Sea) as dwarfs until 1700 BCE.
    They were also found on the Channel Islands off California and disappeared around 40,000 BCE. They are still digging them up, preserved, in the permafrost of Siberia.
    Humans did hunt mammoths, sabre-tooths etc.

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  6. Crocodiles!=dinos, and mammal coexisted w/ dinos by Nicolas+MONNET · · Score: 3, Informative

    Crocodilians do not come from dinosaurs, although they are related, i.e. their earliest common ancestor was neither a dinosaur nor a crocodilian. On the other hand, the earliest common ancestor of birds was a dinosaur.

    Also, mammals existed at least 125Mya:

    The oldest known marsupial is Sinodelphys, found in 125M-year old early Cretaceous shale in China's northeastern Liaoning Province. The fossil is nearly complete and includes tufts of fur and imprints of soft tissues.

  7. Re:Crocodiles!=dinos, and mammal coexisted w/ dino by Randle_Revar · · Score: 3, Informative

    >Well the placental mammals, like us and almost every other mammal, did not evolve until after the Asteroid event.

    Wrong. There were plenty of mammals in the Mesozoic. And according to the University of California Museum of Paleontology "Eutherians first became common in central Asia during the Upper Cretaceous." Eutherians being the technically correct name for placental mammals.

    http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/eutheria/eutheriafr.html

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  8. Re:Just fill in the remaining genes by 3waygeek · · Score: 4, Informative

    the tasmanian devil is still alive and well

    I don't think "well" is the right word to describe the Tasmanian devil's status.