Editor's Summary
16 November 2006
Neanderthal Genomics
Neanderthal traits appear in the human fossil record of Europe and western Asia about 400,000 years ago and vanish about 30,000 years ago. The Neanderthals are our closest extinct relatives, so as DNA technology advances the tantalizing prospect of identifying genetic changes characteristic of fully modern humans comes closer. A 38,000-year-old Neanderthal bone of sufficiently high quality to allow the extraction of more than a million base pairs has now been identified: it was originally found Vindija cave in Croatia (pictured on the cover) in 1980. Comparison of its DNA with the chimp and human genomes reveals that Neanderthal and human ancestors — like humans but unlike apes — had a small effective population size. The technology used in this work offers the prospect of a draft Neanderthal genome within two years.
News: Neanderthal genome sees first light
Initial sequences sheds light on common ancestor.
Rex Dalton
doi:10.1038/444254a
News and Views: Evolutionary biology: Ancient genomics is born
The reality of a complete Neanderthal genome draws near, as two papers report the sequencing of large amounts of Neanderthal DNA. The results will help to answer some central questions on human evolution.
David M. Lambert and Craig D. Millar
doi:10.1038/444275a
Article: Analysis of one million base pairs of Neanderthal DNA
Richard E. Green, Johannes Krause, Susan E. Ptak, Adrian W. Briggs, Michael T. Ronan, Jan F. Simons, Lei Du, Michael Egholm, Jonathan M. Rothberg, Maja Paunovic and Svante Pääbo
doi:10.1038/nature05336
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (899K) | Supplementary information
