Traces of DNA in Museum

Probably the first DNA study in 1984, with publication of Russ Higuchi and colleagues at Berkeley, which was the size of the molecular biology revolution, traces of DNA from a museum specimen of the Quagga, not only remained in the sample more than 150 years after the death of the individual, but can be extracted and sequenced. Over the next two years, through research into natural and artificially mummified specimens, Svante Pääbo both confirmed that this phenomenon is not confined to the relatively recent museum specimens, but apparently could be replicated in a series of mummified human samples as far back as a number of one thousand years (Pääbo 1985a, 1985b Pääbo, Pääbo1986). Yet the laborious processes that were necessary at that time to the sequence of such DNA (from bacterial clones) were an effective brake on the development of the field of ancient DNA (DNA). However, the development of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) in the late 1980s the field was presented with the ability to make rapid progress.

Double primer PCR amplification of DNA (PCR-jumping) can produce highly skewed and non-authentic sequence artefacts. Multiple primer, nested PCR strategy was used to overcome these shortcomings.

Single primer extension (SPEX abr.) enhancement was introduced in 2007 to post-mortem damage to DNA modification suits. [

The post-PCR era ushered in a wave of publications and numerous research groups tried their hands on a DNA. Soon a series of incredible findings was published, claiming authentic DNA could be extracted from specimens that were millions of years old, in the realms of what Lindahl (1993b) has labeled Antediluvian DNA. The majority of these claims were based on retrieving DNA from organisms preserved in amber. Insects such as stingless bees (Cano et al, 1992a, 1992b .. Cano et al), termites (De Salle et al, 1992;. The Salle et al 1993.) Wood and mosquitoes (De Salle and Grimaldi 1994) and plants (Poinar et al. 1993) and bacterial (Cano et al. 1994) sequences were from Dominican amber dating from the Oligocene epoch. Even older sources of Lebanese amber-packed weevils, dating from the Cretaceous era, also reportedly yielded authentic DNA (Cano et al. 1993). DNA collection is not limited to amber. Several sediment preserved plant remains dating from the Miocene have been successfully investigated (Golenberg et al, 1990;. Golenberg 1991). Then, in 1994 and international reputation, Woodward et al. reported the most exciting results [9], mitochondrial cytochrome b sequences that apparently was from dinosaur bones to more than 80 million years ago date. Then in 1995 two other studies dinosaur DNA sequences from an egg Cretaceous (An et al, 1995, Li et al .., 1995) it seemed that the field would actually knowledge of the evolutionary history of the Earth revolution . Unfortunately, the golden days of DNA did not last long. A critical assessment of ancient DNA literature by developing the field indicates that, with two well-known but highly criticized exceptions that getting 250 million years old halobacterial sequences from Halite claim.Several recent studies succeeded in enhancing DNA from remains older than a few hundred thousand years. The Dinosaur DNA was later revealed to be human Y chromosome