Nature 349, 785 - 788 (28 February 1991); doi:10.1038/349785a0

Ancient HLA genes from 7,500-year-old archaeological remains

David A. Lawlor^*, Cynthia D. Dickel^†, William W. Hauswirth^† & Peter Parham^*‡

^* Departments of Cell Biology, and Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
^† Departments of Immunology and Medical Microbiology, and Ophthamology, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, Florida 32610, USA
^‡ To whom correspondence should be addressed

IN the past decade there has been increasing interest in cloning DNA from ancient and preserved tissues^1–6. Most studies, however, have focused on mitochondrial or chloroplast genes, present at hundreds to thousands of copies per cell compared with one or two for each nuclear gene^7–9. With a probe containing Alu repeat sequences, Pääbo isolated a 3.4-kilobase DNA fragment from a 2,400-year-old Egyptian mummy¹⁰ which was subsequently shown to contain an intron of the nuclear gene HLA-DQA (ref. 11). Here we report a more targeted approach to the characterization of nuclear genes from archaeological specimens. The Windover pond of central Florida has provided skeletal and soft tissue remains from 165 humans, radiocarbon-dated to be 6,990–8,130 years old^12–14. Using DNA obtained from one individual we have characterized segments from six nuclear genes: that for 2-microglobulin and five members of the class I HLA heavy chain gene family. Distinctive patterns of nucleotide substitution in the cloned heavy chain gene segments permit tentative assignment of the HLA-A,B type of the ancient individual.

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