James Noonan and his colleagues (2005. Science 309:597–599) set out to study genome sequences of an extinct species of cave bear. They extracted DNA from 40,000-year-old bones from a cave bear and used a metagenomic approach to isolate, identify, and sequence the cave-bear DNA. Why did they use a metagenomic approach when their objective was to sequence the genome of one species, the cave bear?
Previous techniques of gene sequencing would not give the exact information of an ancient DNA as they might have been contaminated with other samples.both environmental or microbial .
The amount of DNA isolated from the ancient population would be very less. However a metagenomics approach would give an insight into not only tracing the DNA correctly but also influence of the environment/other possible contamininato on the sample. With the plethora of information available on gene sequences, it is possible to find the exact possible species based on available DNA.
Get Answers For Free
Most questions answered within 1 hours.