The Mitochondrial Eve of Modern Genetics: Of Peoples and Genomes, or the Routinization of Race

摘要

In June 2000 the sequence of the complete human genome was presented to the world by science, politics and commerce. Since then, we have learned that the work of the Human Genome Project is not yet complete. Substantial parts of that genome are still being mapped. However, as early as 1981 a complete sequence of another human genome was produced in Cambridge—not a sequence of nuclear DNA, but that of the mitochondrial DNA. Ever since the publication of this sequence, it became the reference genome for geneticists. It is a standardized technology that is known as 'Anderson', referring to the first author of the scientific paper (Anderson et al., 1981). Now it can be downloaded from the Internet, and appears on the computer screen as a text. Anderson plays a central role in studies of genetic diversity—the study of similarities and differences within and between populations—and most notably so in the international endeavour of population genetics known as the Human Genome Diversity Project.