Mammalian mitochondrial capture, a tool for rapid screening of DNA preservation in faunal and undiagnostic remains, and its application to Middle Pleistocene specimens from Qesem Cave (Israel)

摘要

Faunal skeletal remains from prehistoric sites are often too fragmentary to enable identification at the species level based on morphology, complicating attempts to recover ancient DNA sequences from these remains. We designed a novel approach that enables large-scale screening of undiagnostic remains for the preservation of ancient mitochondrial DNA. Following DNA extraction and DNA library preparations, libraries are enriched for mitochondrial DNA using a set of probes, which cover the entire mitochondrial genomes of 242 mammalian species. We show that the efficiency of mitochondrial enrichment using mammalian capture probes is not substantially lower compared to enrichment using species-specific probes.