The first fossil chromosomes were found in the frozen mammoth skin
How cute is the woolly mammoth? The 3D genome of a tropical elephant, says J’aime Fleischer and Ludovic Orlando
Robert Fleischer is a senior scientist at the Center forConservutismgenomics at the National Zoo and will be excited by that.
“If I was a 12-year-old in my science class in junior high school I’d probably think this was pretty cool,” Fleischer says. “And I still think it’s pretty cool.”
The study is the first to report the 3D structure of an ancient genome, says Ludovic Orlando, a molecular archaeologist at Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France, who didn’t take part in the research. The structure of the complete genetic material of an animal holds clues to its activity in the body, and this knowledge could allow for further study of the skin of the animal. “This work is simply unprecedented.”
“The preservation of genetic architectures from the woolly mammoth is really remarkable,” Flessa says. “But just because you can do it, doesn’t mean that it should be done. A genetically modified Asian elephant is not a woolly mammoth. It wouldn’t be wise to release an animal into the wild.
Karl Flessa is ageosciences professor at the University of Arizona and he agrees on the foolishness of trying to bring back the extinct pachyderm.
Lynch says there is a huge potential for unforeseen consequences. “Just think about all the other invasive species that are in the world. You don’t really know the effect that species is going to have in the environment until it gets there.”
But Lynch isn’t a fan of trying to bring back the mammoth. He says the consequences of that could be disastrous. And the money for such a project would be much better spent trying to save the elephants that still roam the planet today.
A professor at the University at Buffalo who was not involved in the research, said he thought it was cool.
“It was a piece of a mammoth skin that was, you know, wooly. True to the name — it was indeed woolly mammoth skin,” says Olga Dudchenko, an assistant professor at the Baylor Center for Genome Architecture who worked on the research. It is not as trivial as it sounds because very often the hair is lost. So this one was hairy. This sample of substantial quality is an interesting indicator in and of itself. And that immediately piqued our attention.”
We had bad ideas. I’m a little ashamed to admit it,” Aiden told NPR. “We said, ‘Oh, you know, that looks like a good-looking piece of mammoth on eBay. Let’s try that. It is kind of cringe to tell you that. If you want to buy samples on eBay it is a bad place.
How a woolly mammoth’s skin turned glass: The preservation of its DNA as a bottle of blood or a jerky
“In so doing, you would be able to see exactly how that chromosome was shaped in a living cell, and you’d be able to both get a deeper understanding of the genomes of ancient and extinct species and how those genomes worked – which genes were on and off in particular tissues,” Aiden says.
On the frozen tundra of Siberia some 50,000 years ago, a woolly mammoth met its end under mysterious circumstances. Previously thought impossible, researchers have now discovered chromosomes preserved in their original 3D configuration in samples of the animal’s skin.
The discovery about 40 years ago of scraps of DNA in mummies was the beginning of what is now known as epigenetics. It has since become evident that in many ancient remains the DNA is preserved.
The director and professor of the Center for Genome Architecture at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston says that it is exciting. “We think it’s going to be very valuable.”
The advancement should give us new insight into the biology of the creature. In addition, the work could aid efforts to breed a living version of the animal, the researchers and others said.
The accomplishment, described Thursday in the journal Cell, marks what is believed to be the first time scientists have been able to produce a multidimensional version of the genome of a complex extinct species.
The researchers proposed that mammoth chromosomes had been preserved in a glass-like state through a dehydration process similar to that used to produce beef jerky. The technique results in tissue that is densely packed and immobile.
The team’s experiments on freeze-dried beef jerky, which was subjected to extreme tests including being shot with a gun and run over with a car, confirmed the researchers’ theory: the jerky shattered like glass but its chromosomes remained intact.
“In absolutely no way would one think that [ancient] DNA stays in its shape,” says Víctor Moreno Mayar, a specialist in ancient populations genomics at the University of Copenhagen, who was not involved in the study. Seeing that it can “is really cool”, he says.
The findings suggest that if the conditions are perfect, the recovering of ancient DNA can extend beyond what was previously thought possible.
Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in the US have discovered the 3D structure of an ancient genome of a tropical elephant’s skin. The DNA was preserved in a glass-like state through a dehydration process similar to that used to produce beef jerky. Previously thought impossible, researchers discovered chromosomes preserved in their original 3D configuration in samples of the animal’s skin.