ネアンデルタール人ゲノムの解読

Typically, DNA to be sequenced must be cloned in bacteria to produce large enough amounts for study. But because the Neanderthal DNA had broken down into tiny fragments, Pääbo and his colleagues used a new sequencing technique, developed by 454 Life Sciences in Branford, Connecticut, that allows genetic fragments in an emulsion to be sequenced directly in tiny wells. They are now analysing the results to work out how the different fragments fit together so that they can be compared with the modern human genome sequence.

45,000万年前のネアンデルタール人の化石からDNAを抽出してゲノム解読しているお話。ロマンだなー。長年の劣化によりDNAは小さな断片になっており通常のBACでは解析できないので、500人弱の生物学者が取り掛かって新しい系で解析したそうです。universal probe使ってもダメなのか。どうやったのかな。