Extending the spectrum of DNA sequences retrieved from ancient bones and teeth.

ABSTRACT: The number of DNA fragments surviving in ancient bones and teeth is known to decrease with fragment length. Recent genetic analyses of Middle Pleistocene remains have shown that the recovery of extremely short fragments can prove critical for successful retrieval of sequence information from particularly degraded ancient biological material. Current sample preparation techniques, however, are not optimized to recover DNA sequences from fragments shorter than ∼35 base pairs (bp). Here, we show that much shorter DNA fragments are present in ancient skeletal remains but lost during DNA extraction. We present a refined silica-based DNA extraction method that not only enables efficient recovery of molecules as short as 25 bp but also doubles the yield of sequences from longer fragments due to i

SUBMITTER: Glocke I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5495074 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature