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Extinct Tasmanian Tiger's Mitochondrial Genes Revealed
WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- An international team of scientists have found all the mitochondrial genes that the Tasmanian Tiger inherited only from its mother, which makes it possible to bring the already extinct Australia-native animal back to life, a research paper says.
According to the online edition of U.S. magazine Genome Research published on Tuesday, the research marks the first successful sequencing of genes from this carnivorous marsupial, which looked like a large tiger-striped dog and is considered to become extinct in 1936.
The research also opens the door to the widespread, nondestructive use of museum specimens to learn why mammals become extinct and how extinctions might be prevented.
"Our goal is to learn how to prevent endangered species from going extinct," said Webb Miller, a Pennsylvania State University professor of biology and of computer science and engineering, and also a member of the research team that includes scientists from the U.S., Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Britain and Germany.
The team's research relies on new gene-sequencing technology and computational methods developed by Miller and Stephan Schuster, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Pennsylvania State University. The new methods involve extracting DNA from the hair of extinct specimens, not from bone, which has been used in previous studies of extinct species.
The team's work reveals that hair is a powerful time capsule for preserving DNA over long periods and under a wide range of conditions.
"I think of hair as a shrine for ancient DNA," Schuster said. "It is sealed so well that not even air or water are able to penetrate the DNA stored inside. Most importantly, bacteria cannot reach the DNA as long as the structure of the hair remains sound."
Tasmanian Tiger is a common name of the extinct thylacine species (Thylacinus cynocephalus), which is more closely related to kangaroos and koalas than to dogs or tigers. Thylacines have played an important role in discussions about the possibility of bringing extinct species back to life, but despite the availability of many bones and other remains, previous attempts to read thylacine DNA had been unsuccessful.
Xinhua News Agency: 14th January 2009