Neandertal Genome to be Deciphered

[C1ay]

The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and 454 Life Sciences Corporation, in Branford, Connecticut, have announced an ambitious plan to complete a first draft of the Neandertal genome within the next two years.

 

lefthttp://hypography.com/gallery/files/9/9/8/Neanderthal_thumb.jpg[/img]Prof Svante Pääbo, Director of the Institute’s Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, and Dr. Michael Egholm, Vice-President of Molecular Biology for 454 Life Sciences will jointly direct the project, made possible by financing from the Max Planck Society. 454 Life Sciences’ newly developed sequencing technology has made it possible to extract and sequence nuclear DNA from Neandertal fossils, a hopeless task using traditional techniques. As a trial, the collaborators have already sequenced approximately one million base pairs of nuclear Neandertal DNA from a 38,000-year-old Croatian fossil.

 

This August marks the 150th anniversary of the discovery of the first Neandertal fossil in the Neander Valley near Dusseldorf, Germany. Ever since that time, paleontologists and anthropologists have been striving to uncover the role of these stockily-built early humans in modern human evolution who lived in Europe and parts of Asia until they disappeared about 30,000 years ago. Pääbo, a pioneer in the field of ancient DNA research, brought the world closer to understanding our relationship to Neandertals when he sequenced Neandertal mitochondrial DNA in 1997. This breakthrough suggested that Neandertals did not make a substantial contribution to the modern human gene pool, even though the Neandertals and modern humans coexisted for thousands of years. Together with 454 Life Sciences, Pääbo is now gearing up to take the next leap in Neandertal research and sequence the entire 3 billion base pairs that made up their genome. They will then compare the Neandertal genome to the already sequenced human and chimpanzee genomes. This will clarify the evolutionary relationship between humans and Neandertals as well as help identify those genetic changes that enabled modern humans to leave Africa and rapidly spread around the world starting around 100,000 years ago.

 

Extracting, identifying and sequencing ancient DNA from fossils is a technically challenging task. When an organism dies, its tissues are overrun by bacteria and fungi. Much of the DNA is simply destroyed, and the small amount remaining is broken into short pieces and chemically modified during the long period of fossil formation. This means that when scientists mine tiny samples of ancient bones for DNA, much of the DNA obtained is actually from contaminants such as bacteria, fungi, and even scientists who have previously handled the bones. Over the last twenty years, Pääbo’s research group has developed methods for demonstrating the authenticity of ancient DNA results, as well as technical solutions to the problems of working with short, chemically-modified DNA fragments. Together with 454 Life Sciences they will now combine these methods with a novel high-throughput DNA sequencing that is ideally suited to analyze ancient DNA.

 

Until now, ancient DNA researchers have targeted mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), a small circle of DNA found in the cell’s energy-producing mitochondria. Each mitochondrion contains multiple copies of mtDNA, so it tends to persist in fossils and bits can be retrieved by a technique called the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Pääbo and other experts in ancient DNA research have therefore focused on sequencing the mtDNA of ancient organisms such as the woolly mammoth and cave bears. However, mtDNA comprises only about 0.001% of a mammal’s entire genome and is inherited exclusively through the female line. It therefore provides only limited insights into how ancient organism differed from those living today.

 

In order to sequence an entire mammalian nuclear genome, millions of PCR reactions would have to be performed requiring kilograms of Neandertal bones. Until 454 Life Sciences’ development of the Genome Sequencer 20 System, sequencing the entire nuclear genome of ancient organisms therefore seemed impossible. This technology makes such an endeavor feasible by allowing about a quarter of a million single DNA strands to be amplified individually by PCR from small amounts of bone and sequenced in only about four hours by a single machine. The DNA sequences determined by the Genome Sequencer 20 System are 100-200 base pairs in length, which coincides neatly with the length of ancient DNA fragments. Over the next two years, the Neandertal sequencing team will determine about 60 billion bases from Neandertal fossils in order to reconstruct a draft of the 3 billion bases that made up the genome of Neandertals. The team will use samples from several well-preserved Neandertals. The Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Bonn and Dr. Ralf W. Schmitz have generously agreed to provide a sample from the original Neandertal type specimen, discovered 150 years ago.

 

Source: Max Planck Society

[HydrogenBond]

It is quite amazing how far genome sequencing has come. The data will give us a way to compare the DNA compositions between modern humans and Neandertal. What it will not tell us is the difference between the ordering of the genes on the DNA, due to degradation.

 

I thought it strange that the mitochonrial DNA is different between modern humans and Neandertal. That creates a missing link since Nean-man is usually considered part of the progression.

[Michaelangelica]

I thought it strange that the mitochonrial DNA is different between modern humans and Neandertal. That creates a missing link since Nean-man is usually considered part of the progression.

I don't think neanderthals are in the link.

So far, genetic testing has found two distinct species with no inbeeding between us and Neanderthals.

[HydrogenBond]

I agree with you. But this was not always the case until DNA testing. The formation of human civilization implied a far different human than had existed before. I am not sure if there is contrasting data between the few thousand year span between what was before and after the beginning of human civilization. The more we know about the DNA the more these differences will come to light. The only problem with pure DNA data is the order of genes is almost as important as the types of genes. The order of genes may be much harder to differentiate due to degradation.

 

For example, the offspring from the human lines before civilization, may have undergone a DNA reshuffling of its genes, during fertilization, making works in progress genes appear higher up in the hierarchy. This would change humans, without altering DNA content. The old disposition genes might become part of the junk genes.

 

This is not that far fetched. Children often show the characteristics of the parents, but sometimes they look like the product of the mailman. Even though they have the same genes of the parents, genes that are higher in the parental DNA hierarchy can appear less active in some offspring. Often genetic things skip generations becuase the previous generational genes that were lowering in hierarchy within the parents, once again become closer to the top within their offspring.

 

By top and bottom, I mean that all cells in our body have the same DNA. Part of the difference within differentiated cells is due to what genes pack and unpack in each cell. For example, the proteins needed for nerve cells are typically packed away in red blood cells, while new capability genes are unpacked to make hemoglobin. If the packing/unpacking structures are kept constant, altering where the genes are on the DNA will alter the types of genes that will be active/inactive within that cellular differentations.

[Turtle]

Once the sequencing is complete, I propose we clone them & sell them as pets. Training them to harvest fruits & veggies, we free people from the task. Equipped with the knowledge of how to train Neandertahls, they then take good paying jobs in the entertainment industry producing shows with trained Neandertals. Trained to dig, we can send them to Mars or the Moon. When they get that mammoth cloned, they can perform together in traveling circus acts. You know...kinda like a god.:eek_big:

[Michaelangelica]

Once the sequencing is complete, I propose we clone them & sell them as pets. :eek_big:

LOL

VG

Perhaps they were smarter than us (bigger brains and all that) so decided to go extict before the 21C came arround

[Michaelangelica]

 

This is not that far fetched.

Yes I agree.

Gene expression is very much more complex than than the public is told.

Position is very important in DNA as in Real Estate:)

 

It is interesting we are trying to look at neanderthal genetic material when we still have only a very rough "map" of our own and that cost 3Bil.

[munch]

I was always under the impression that mtDNA was different from regular DNA in the nucleus. It was this different DNA that got passed maternally. Of course, most of my knowledge comes from crime shows and the Wrinkle in Time series, so tell me if I'm way off.

 

:) <== See, I don't know anything.

[Michaelangelica]

OK Guess what

They gave us our brain size!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/science/09gene.html?ref=science

Dr. Lahn and associates discovered that a gene for brain size called microcephalin underwent a significant change 37,000 years ago. Its modified variant, or allele, appeared to confer a fitness advantage on those who possessed it. It is now present in about 70 percent of the world’s population.

 

The new research focused on the two classes of alleles of the brain gene. One appeared to have emerged 1.1 million years ago in an archaic Homo lineage that led to Neanderthals and was separate from the immediate predecessors of modern humans. The 37,000-year date for the other variant immediately suggested a connection with Neanderthals.

 

Dr. Lahn said it did not necessarily show that interbreeding was widespread. It could have been a rare, perhaps even single, event.

[Michaelangelica]

OK Guess what

They gave us our brain size!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/science/09gene.html?ref=science

 

So, given this is true; would this be the reason H.sapiens has such trouble giving birth? Because our hip/pelvis size is too small for a Neanderthal sized brain to squeeze though?

Did Neanderthals have a bigger pelvis?