Ancient genomes

摘要

Ever since its invention, the polymerase chain reaction has been the method of choice for woVk with ancient DMA. In an application of modern genomic methods to material from the Pleistocene, a recent study has instead undertaken to clone and sequencea portion of the ancient genome of the cave bear. Nearly 20 years ago a researcher from down the hall in the Department of Genetics at Cambridge University brought in a home-built contraption for us to try. It consisted of a metal box containing a singlehalogen lamp with a copper sheet on top with eppendorf-tube-shaped indentations, together with a BBC Micro computer to run it. It was a proto-PCR machine, and along with their home-brewed Taq polymerase it worked quite well. This was soon after Saiki et al.