Complete mitochondrial genome sequence of a Middle Pleistocene cave bear reconstructed from ultrashort DNA fragments

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Publication Date

9-24-2013

Publication Title

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Volume Number

110

Issue Number

39

Abstract

Significance Outside of permafrost, no contiguous DNA sequences have been generated from material older than ∼120,000 y. By improving our ability to sequence very short DNA fragments, we have recovered the mitochondrial genome sequence of a >300,000-y-old cave bear from Sima de los Huesos, a Spanish cave site that is famous for its rich collection of Middle Pleistocene human fossils. This finding demonstrates that DNA can survive for hundreds of thousands of years outside of permafrost and opens the prospect of making more samples from this time period accessible to genetic studies.

Document Type

Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.og/10.1073/pnas.1314445110

Language

English

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