Mammoth genome read in Russia
Russian scientists have completed the complete decoding of the mammoth genome
Anastasia Martynova, Anna Morozova, Alexander Savin, TV Center
After years of hard work, 3.5 billion particles were collected in a single sequence. To read the ancient DNA, scientists used the genetic material of the mammoth Chroma, discovered in Yakutia in 2009.
Flasks, test tubes, solutions, unfamiliar devices. The entourage of this laboratory will not tell the layman anything. But this is the birthplace of a scientific sensation. The place where the mammoth genome was decoded. An ancient animal that lived on Earth 50 thousand years ago, if desired, can again join the ranks of mammals. After all, he is a close relative of the living Indian elephant.
"I don't want to talk about science fiction, but in general it is becoming more and more possible to change several genes in an Asian elephant and get a live mammoth," said Konstantin Scriabin, director of the Bioengineering Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Research in the field of ancient DNA is more than 30 years old. The work was hampered by the incomplete preservation of genetic material. In permafrost, the structure of the gene is disrupted, bacteria get into the samples. In 2008, the scientific world celebrated victory without 5 minutes – scientists decoded 70 percent of the mammoth genome. Full sequencing was successful in 2015. And now – a scientific sensation in Russia.
"We have confirmed the data that the Indian or Asian elephant is the "brother" of the woolly mammoth, which also lived in Eurasia and became extinct 4 thousand years ago. The last population lived on Wrangel Island," explained Artem Nedoluzhko, head of the Laboratory of Genomics and Bioinformatics at the Kurchatov Institute Research Center.
To read the genome of ancient animals, the biomaterial of the mammoth Chroma, brought from Yakutia to the Zoological Institute of St. Petersburg in 2009, was used. It is here that the Mammoth Committee of the Russian Academy of Sciences still exists. For the work on reading the genome, scientists received 3 samples – wool, skin and bone of a mammoth.
The authors of the sensation are a research team of three institutes that worked side by side for more than two years. Molecular biologists isolated genetic information and "read" the DNA sequence. Mathematicians – analyzed. The resulting genome, which is 3.5 billion letters, was compared with the genomes of living mammals. Even the supercomputer of the Kurchatov Institute was involved for this.
"We have created a platform that allows us to study ancient DNA. In this way we can trace the evolution of both animals and human migration. We can trace which nationalities lived and live and how they move," said Konstantin Scriabin, director of the Bioengineering Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
There is a laboratory for full-cycle genetic research in three other countries of the world. Now it is working successfully with us. Decoding the mammoth genome allows you to work out the entire system of obtaining ancient DNA. A country that occupies 1/6 of the land and has hundreds of unexplored archaeological finds, this promises a lot of discoveries.
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17.05.2016