Researchers complete high quality sequencing of Neanderthal genome

PanARMENIAN.Net - Researchers have completed the first high-quality sequencing of a Neanderthal genome, Belfast Telegraph reported.

The genome produced from remains of a toe bone found in a Siberian cave is far more detailed than a previous "draft" Neanderthal genome sequenced three years ago by the same team at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

"The genome of a Neanderthal is now there in a form as accurate as that of any person walking the streets today," said Svante Paabo, a geneticist who led the research.

The Leipzig team has already been able to determine which genes the Neanderthal inherited from its mother and which from its father.

It now hopes to compare the new genome sequence to that of other Neanderthals, modern humans and Denisovans - another extinct human species whose genome was previously extracted from remains found in the same Siberian cave.

Paabo's group plans to publish a scientific paper later this year, and in the meantime, the genome sequence is being made freely available so scientists elsewhere can conduct research on it. The announcement was welcomed by other researchers.

Wil Roebroeks, an archaeologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands who was not involved in the Leipzig study, said it was "exciting times" for comparative studies of humans and our closest extinct relatives.

By combining findings from genetics with studies of early diets, technology and physical anthropology of different human species, scientists would probably find new insights into our evolutionary past soon, he said.