No ancient DNA damage in Actinobacteria from the Neanderthal bone.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The Neanderthal genome was recently sequenced using DNA extracted from a 38,000-year-old fossil. At the start of the project, the fraction of mammalian and bacterial DNA in the sample was estimated to be <6% and 9%, respectively. Treatment with restriction enzymes prior to sequencing increased the relative proportion of mammalian DNA to 15%, but the large majority of sequences remain uncharacterized.

Principal findings

Our taxonomic profiling of 3.95 Gb of Neanderthal DNA isolated from the Vindija Neanderthal Vi33.16 fossil showed that 90% of about 50,000 rRNA gene sequence reads were of bacterial origin, of which Actinobacteria accounted for more than 75%. Actinobacteria also represented more than 80% of the PCR-amplified 16S rRNA gene sequences from a cave sedim

SUBMITTER: Zaremba-Niedzwiedzka K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3643900 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature