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Nikolaos P, Despoina V, Argyro N, Eugenia T, Pavlos P, Alexandros S, Nikos P. Identification of the 18 World War II executed citizens of Adele, Rethymnon, Crete using an ancient DNA approach and low coverage genomes. Forensic Sci Int Genet 2024; 71:103060. [PMID: 38796876 DOI: 10.1016/j.fsigen.2024.103060] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/07/2023] [Revised: 04/22/2024] [Accepted: 05/05/2024] [Indexed: 05/29/2024]
Abstract
In the Battle of Crete during the World War II occupation of Greece, the German forces faced substantial civilian resistance. To retribute the numerous German losses, a series of mass executions took place in numerous places in Crete; a common practice reported from Greece and elsewhere. In Adele, a village in the regional unit of Rethymnon, 18 male civilians were executed and buried in a burial pit at the Sarakina site. In this study, the first one conducted for a conflict that occurred in Greece, we identified for humanitarian purposes the 18 skulls of the Sarakina victims, following a request from the local community of Adele. The molecular identification of historical human remains via ancient DNA approaches and low coverage whole genome sequencing has only recently been introduced. Here, we performed genome skimming on the living relatives of the victims, as well as high throughput historical DNA analysis on the skulls to infer the kinship degrees among the victims via genetic relatedness analyses. We also conducted targeted anthropological analysis to successfully complete the identification of all Sarakina victims. We demonstrate that our methodological approach constitutes a potentially highly informative forensic tool to identify war victims. It can hence be applied to analogous studies on degraded DNA, thus, paving the path for systematic war victim identification in Greece and beyond.
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Affiliation(s)
- Psonis Nikolaos
- Ancient DNA Lab, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB), Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), Irakleio 70013, Greece.
| | - Vassou Despoina
- Ancient DNA Lab, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB), Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), Irakleio 70013, Greece
| | - Nafplioti Argyro
- Ancient DNA Lab, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB), Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), Irakleio 70013, Greece
| | - Tabakaki Eugenia
- Ancient DNA Lab, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB), Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), Irakleio 70013, Greece
| | - Pavlidis Pavlos
- Institute of Computer Science (ICS), Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), Irakleio 70013, Greece; Department of Biology, School of Sciences and Engineering, University of Crete, Irakleio 70013, Greece
| | - Stamatakis Alexandros
- Institute of Computer Science (ICS), Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), Irakleio 70013, Greece; Computational Molecular Evolution Group, Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Heidelberg 69118, Germany; Institute for Theoretical Informatics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe 76131, Germany
| | - Poulakakis Nikos
- Ancient DNA Lab, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB), Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), Irakleio 70013, Greece; Natural History Museum of Crete, School of Sciences and Engineering, University of Crete, Irakleio 71409, Greece; Department of Biology, School of Sciences and Engineering, University of Crete, Irakleio 70013, Greece
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2
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Almeida da Paz M, Warger S, Taher L. Disregarding multimappers leads to biases in the functional assessment of NGS data. BMC Genomics 2024; 25:455. [PMID: 38720252 PMCID: PMC11078754 DOI: 10.1186/s12864-024-10344-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2024] [Accepted: 04/24/2024] [Indexed: 05/12/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Standard ChIP-seq and RNA-seq processing pipelines typically disregard sequencing reads whose origin is ambiguous ("multimappers"). This usual practice has potentially important consequences for the functional interpretation of the data: genomic elements belonging to clusters composed of highly similar members are left unexplored. RESULTS In particular, disregarding multimappers leads to the underrepresentation in epigenetic studies of recently active transposable elements, such as AluYa5, L1HS and SVAs. Furthermore, this common strategy also has implications for transcriptomic analysis: members of repetitive gene families, such the ones including major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I and II genes, are under-quantified. CONCLUSION Revealing inherent biases that permeate routine tasks such as functional enrichment analysis, our results underscore the urgency of broadly adopting multimapper-aware bioinformatic pipelines -currently restricted to specific contexts or communities- to ensure the reliability of genomic and transcriptomic studies.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Sarah Warger
- Institute of Biomedical Informatics, Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria
| | - Leila Taher
- Institute of Biomedical Informatics, Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria.
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Hempel E, Faith JT, Preick M, de Jager D, Barish S, Hartmann S, Grau JH, Moodley Y, Gedman G, Pirovich KM, Bibi F, Kalthoff DC, Bocklandt S, Lamm B, Dalén L, Westbury MV, Hofreiter M. Colonial-driven extinction of the blue antelope despite genomic adaptation to low population size. Curr Biol 2024; 34:2020-2029.e6. [PMID: 38614080 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.03.051] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2023] [Revised: 02/09/2024] [Accepted: 03/25/2024] [Indexed: 04/15/2024]
Abstract
Low genomic diversity is generally indicative of small population size and is considered detrimental by decreasing long-term adaptability.1,2,3,4,5,6 Moreover, small population size may promote gene flow with congeners and outbreeding depression.7,8,9,10,11,12,13 Here, we examine the connection between habitat availability, effective population size (Ne), and extinction by generating a 40× nuclear genome from the extinct blue antelope (Hippotragus leucophaeus). Historically endemic to the relatively small Cape Floristic Region in southernmost Africa,14,15 populations were thought to have expanded and contracted across glacial-interglacial cycles, tracking suitable habitat.16,17,18 However, we found long-term low Ne, unaffected by glacial cycles, suggesting persistence with low genomic diversity for many millennia prior to extinction in ∼AD 1800. A lack of inbreeding, alongside high levels of genetic purging, suggests adaptation to this long-term low Ne and that human impacts during the colonial era (e.g., hunting and landscape transformation), rather than longer-term ecological processes, were central to its extinction. Phylogenomic analyses uncovered gene flow between roan (H. equinus) and blue antelope, as well as between roan and sable antelope (H. niger), approximately at the time of divergence of blue and sable antelope (∼1.9 Ma). Finally, we identified the LYST and ASIP genes as candidates for the eponymous bluish pelt color of the blue antelope. Our results revise numerous aspects of our understanding of the interplay between genomic diversity and evolutionary history and provide the resources for uncovering the genetic basis of this extinct species' unique traits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elisabeth Hempel
- Evolutionary Adaptive Genomics, Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24-25, 14476 Potsdam, Germany; Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Invalidenstraße 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany.
| | - J Tyler Faith
- Natural History Museum of Utah, University of Utah, 301 Wakara Way, Salt Lake City, UT 84108, USA; Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, 260 South Central Campus Drive, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA; Origins Centre, University of the Witwatersrand, 2000 Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa
| | - Michaela Preick
- Evolutionary Adaptive Genomics, Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24-25, 14476 Potsdam, Germany
| | - Deon de Jager
- Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark
| | | | - Stefanie Hartmann
- Evolutionary Adaptive Genomics, Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24-25, 14476 Potsdam, Germany
| | - José H Grau
- Center for Species Survival, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Washington, DC 20008, USA; Amedes Genetics, Amedes Medizinische Dienstleistungen GmbH, 10117 Berlin, Germany
| | - Yoshan Moodley
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Venda, Private Bag X5050, Thohoyandou 0950, Republic of South Africa
| | | | | | - Faysal Bibi
- Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Invalidenstraße 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany
| | - Daniela C Kalthoff
- Swedish Museum of Natural History, Department of Zoology, Box 50007, 10405 Stockholm, Sweden
| | | | - Ben Lamm
- Colossal Biosciences, Dallas, TX 75247, USA
| | - Love Dalén
- Swedish Museum of Natural History, Department of Bioinformatics and Genetics, Box 50007, 10405 Stockholm, Sweden; Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20c, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden.
| | - Michael V Westbury
- Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark.
| | - Michael Hofreiter
- Evolutionary Adaptive Genomics, Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24-25, 14476 Potsdam, Germany.
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4
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Yin PK, Xiao H, Yang ZB, Yang DS, Yang YH. Shotgun metagenomics reveals the gut microbial diversity and functions in Vespa mandarinia (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) at multiple life stages. Front Microbiol 2024; 15:1288051. [PMID: 38529182 PMCID: PMC10961340 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1288051] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/03/2023] [Accepted: 02/12/2024] [Indexed: 03/27/2024] Open
Abstract
Wasps play important roles as predators and pollinators in the ecosystem. The Jingpo minority residing in Yunnan Province, China, has a traditional practice of using wine infused with mature wasps as a customary remedy for managing rheumatoid arthritis. The larva of the wasp is also a tasteful folk dish that has created a tremendous market. There is a paucity of survival knowledge, which has greatly restricted their potential applications in food and healthcare. Recent research has highlighted the importance of gut microbiota in insect growth. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of understanding regarding the composition, changes, and functions of the gut microbiota in Vespa mandarinia during development. In this research, the gut microbiota were investigated across three growth stages of Vespa mandarinia using a metagenomic technology. The result revealed that there are significant variations in the proportion of main gut microbes during the metamorphosis of Vespa mandarinia. Tenericutes were found to dominate during the larval stage, while Proteobacteria emerged as the dominant group post-pupation. Through a comprehensive analysis of the gut microbiota metagenome, this study revealed functional differences in the wasp gut microbiota at various growth stages. During the larval stage, the gut microbiota plays a central role in promoting metabolism. Following pupation, the gut microbiota exhibited diversified functions, likely due to the complex environments and diverse food sources encountered after metamorphosis. These functions included amino acid metabolism, compound degradation, and defense mechanisms. This research provides an extensive dataset on the gut microbiota during the metamorphosis of Vespa mandarinia, contributing to a deeper understanding of the influence of gut microbiota on wasp growth. Furthermore, this study uncovers a unique microbial treasure within insect guts, which is important for advancing the application of wasps in the fields of food and medicine.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peng-Kai Yin
- Yunnan Provincial Key Laboratory of Entomological Biopharmaceutical R&D, Dali University, Dali, China
- College of Pharmacy, Dali University, Dali, China
| | - Huai Xiao
- Yunnan Provincial Key Laboratory of Entomological Biopharmaceutical R&D, Dali University, Dali, China
- College of Pharmacy, Dali University, Dali, China
| | - Zhi-Bin Yang
- Yunnan Provincial Key Laboratory of Entomological Biopharmaceutical R&D, Dali University, Dali, China
- College of Pharmacy, Dali University, Dali, China
| | - Da-Song Yang
- Yunnan Provincial Key Laboratory of Entomological Biopharmaceutical R&D, Dali University, Dali, China
- College of Pharmacy, Dali University, Dali, China
| | - Yin-He Yang
- Yunnan Provincial Key Laboratory of Entomological Biopharmaceutical R&D, Dali University, Dali, China
- College of Pharmacy, Dali University, Dali, China
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Eisenhofer R, Wright S, Weyrich L. Benchmarking a targeted 16S ribosomal RNA gene enrichment approach to reconstruct ancient microbial communities. PeerJ 2024; 12:e16770. [PMID: 38440408 PMCID: PMC10911074 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.16770] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2023] [Accepted: 12/16/2023] [Indexed: 03/06/2024] Open
Abstract
The taxonomic characterization of ancient microbiomes is a key step in the rapidly growing field of paleomicrobiology. While PCR amplification of the 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene is a widely used technique in modern microbiota studies, this method has systematic biases when applied to ancient microbial DNA. Shotgun metagenomic sequencing has proven to be the most effective method in reconstructing taxonomic profiles of ancient dental calculus samples. Nevertheless, shotgun sequencing approaches come with inherent limitations that could be addressed through hybridization enrichment capture. When employed together, shotgun sequencing and hybridization capture have the potential to enhance the characterization of ancient microbial communities. Here, we develop, test, and apply a hybridization enrichment capture technique to selectively target 16S rRNA gene fragments from the libraries of ancient dental calculus samples generated with shotgun techniques. We simulated data sets generated from hybridization enrichment capture, indicating that taxonomic identification of fragmented and damaged 16S rRNA gene sequences was feasible. Applying this enrichment approach to 15 previously published ancient calculus samples, we observed a 334-fold increase of ancient 16S rRNA gene fragments in the enriched samples when compared to unenriched libraries. Our results suggest that 16S hybridization capture is less prone to the effects of background contamination than 16S rRNA amplification, yielding a higher percentage of on-target recovery. While our enrichment technique detected low abundant and rare taxa within a given sample, these assignments may not achieve the same level of specificity as those achieved by unenriched methods.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Sterling Wright
- Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States
| | - Laura Weyrich
- Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States
- Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
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6
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Davidson R, Williams MP, Roca-Rada X, Kassadjikova K, Tobler R, Fehren-Schmitz L, Llamas B. Allelic bias when performing in-solution enrichment of ancient human DNA. Mol Ecol Resour 2023; 23:1823-1840. [PMID: 37712846 DOI: 10.1111/1755-0998.13869] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/09/2023] [Accepted: 08/11/2023] [Indexed: 09/16/2023]
Abstract
In-solution hybridisation enrichment of genetic variation is a valuable methodology in human paleogenomics. It allows enrichment of endogenous DNA by targeting genetic markers that are comparable between sequencing libraries. Many studies have used the 1240k reagent-which enriches 1,237,207 genome-wide SNPs-since 2015, though access was restricted. In 2021, Twist Biosciences and Daicel Arbor Biosciences independently released commercial kits that enabled all researchers to perform enrichments for the same 1240 k SNPs. We used the Daicel Arbor Biosciences Prime Plus kit to enrich 132 ancient samples from three continents. We identified a systematic assay bias that increases genetic similarity between enriched samples and that cannot be explained by batch effects. We present the impact of the bias on population genetics inferences (e.g. Principal Components Analysis, ƒ-statistics) and genetic relatedness (READ). We compare the Prime Plus bias to that previously reported of the legacy 1240k enrichment assay. In ƒ-statistics, we find that all Prime-Plus-generated data exhibit artefactual excess shared drift, such that within-continent relationships cannot be correctly determined. The bias is more subtle in READ, though interpretation of the results can still be misleading in specific contexts. We expect the bias may affect analyses we have not yet tested. Our observations support previously reported concerns for the integration of different data types in paleogenomics. We also caution that technological solutions to generate 1240k data necessitate a thorough validation process before their adoption in the paleogenomic community.
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Affiliation(s)
- Roberta Davidson
- The Australian Centre for Ancient DNA and the Environment Institute, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
| | - Matthew P Williams
- The Australian Centre for Ancient DNA and the Environment Institute, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
- Biology Department, The Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Xavier Roca-Rada
- The Australian Centre for Ancient DNA and the Environment Institute, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
| | - Kalina Kassadjikova
- UCSC Paleogenomics, Department of Anthropology, University of California, California, USA
| | - Raymond Tobler
- The Australian Centre for Ancient DNA and the Environment Institute, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
- Evolution of Cultural Diversity Initiative, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
- Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
| | - Lars Fehren-Schmitz
- UCSC Paleogenomics, Department of Anthropology, University of California, California, USA
- UCSC Genomics Institute, University of California, California, USA
| | - Bastien Llamas
- The Australian Centre for Ancient DNA and the Environment Institute, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
- Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
- National Centre for Indigenous Genomics, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
- Indigenous Genomics, Telethon Kids Institute, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
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Ma H, Lao Y, Liu S, Ai J, Sun X, Zhang W, Kang M, Li J, Sun Y. The diurnal salivary glands transcriptome of Dermacentor nuttalli from the first four days of blood feeding. Ticks Tick Borne Dis 2023; 14:102178. [PMID: 37001418 DOI: 10.1016/j.ttbdis.2023.102178] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/16/2022] [Revised: 02/25/2023] [Accepted: 03/14/2023] [Indexed: 03/31/2023]
Abstract
The ixodid tick Dermacentor nuttalli is distributed from southern Siberia to North China and is a vector of many pathogens. This species can have severe impacts on animal husbandry and human health. To date, the control of D. nuttalli is limited to the use of acaricides such as organophosphorus, synthetic pyrethroids and amidine pesticides. There are no environmentally friendly or reliable prevention and control measures, and little is known regarding key antigens involved in blood feeding. Salivary glands are major tissues involved in the blood feeding and pathogen transmission of ticks. Therefore, this study focused on salivary glands tissue to identify the dominant antigens of D. nuttalli involved in tick feeding. For this, high-throughput RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) was used for analysis. The transcriptome of female D. nuttalli ticks was assembled and characterized, and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in the salivary glands of ticks that had not fed (0 h) and of ticks after 24, 48, 72 and 96 h of feeding. There were 22,802,784, 22,275,013, 26,629,453, 24,982,389, and 22,596,230 high-quality clean reads obtained from salivary glands tissues at the five different blood feeding time points. The total number of annotated unigenes was 100,347. The differences in gene expression between different time points were compared, and functional enrichment was performed. Quantitative reverse transcription PCR (RT‒qPCR) was used to validate the RNA-seq results, the results of which showed that the differences in expressed transcripts presented similar trends. Among the identified DEGs, the most numerous were those with catalytic and binding activities and those involved in diverse metabolic pathways and cellular processes. The expression patterns of homologous and family-member proteins throughout the blood feeding period exhibited significant differences, strongly suggesting that the transcriptome composition is highly dynamic and likely subjected to important variation throughout the life cycle. Studies of gene sequences in D. nuttalli will greatly increase the information on tick protective antigens, which could potentially function as effective vaccine candidates or drug targets for the development of environmentally friendly acaricides.
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Westbury MV, Lorenzen ED. Iteratively mapping ancient
DNA
to reconstruct highly divergent mitochondrial genomes: An evaluation of software, parameters and bait reference. Methods Ecol Evol 2022. [DOI: 10.1111/2041-210x.13990] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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Oliva A, Tobler R, Llamas B, Souilmi Y. Additional evaluations show that specific BWA-aln settings still outperform BWA-mem for ancient DNA data alignment. Ecol Evol 2022; 11:18743-18748. [PMID: 35003706 PMCID: PMC8717315 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.8297] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/07/2021] [Revised: 10/07/2021] [Accepted: 10/15/2021] [Indexed: 11/07/2022] Open
Abstract
Xu et al. (2021) recently recommended a new parameterization of BWA-mem as a superior alternative to the widely-used BWA-aln algorithm to map ancient DNA sequencing data. Here, we compare the BWA-mem parameterization recommended by Xu et al. with the best-performing alignment methods determined in the recent benchmarks of Oliva and colleagues (2021), demonstrating that BWA-aln is still the gold-standard for ancient DNA read alignment .
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Affiliation(s)
- Adrien Oliva
- Australian Centre for Ancient DNASchool of Biological SciencesFaculty of SciencesThe University of AdelaideAdelaideSouth AustraliaAustralia
| | - Raymond Tobler
- Australian Centre for Ancient DNASchool of Biological SciencesFaculty of SciencesThe University of AdelaideAdelaideSouth AustraliaAustralia
- The Environment InstituteFaculty of SciencesThe University of AdelaideAdelaideSouth AustraliaAustralia
| | - Bastien Llamas
- Australian Centre for Ancient DNASchool of Biological SciencesFaculty of SciencesThe University of AdelaideAdelaideSouth AustraliaAustralia
- The Environment InstituteFaculty of SciencesThe University of AdelaideAdelaideSouth AustraliaAustralia
- National Centre for Indigenous GenomicsAustralian National UniversityCanberraAustralian Capital TerritoryAustralia
| | - Yassine Souilmi
- Australian Centre for Ancient DNASchool of Biological SciencesFaculty of SciencesThe University of AdelaideAdelaideSouth AustraliaAustralia
- The Environment InstituteFaculty of SciencesThe University of AdelaideAdelaideSouth AustraliaAustralia
- National Centre for Indigenous GenomicsAustralian National UniversityCanberraAustralian Capital TerritoryAustralia
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Mining museums for historical DNA: advances and challenges in museomics. Trends Ecol Evol 2021; 36:1049-1060. [PMID: 34456066 DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2021.07.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 72] [Impact Index Per Article: 24.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/02/2021] [Revised: 07/22/2021] [Accepted: 07/23/2021] [Indexed: 01/22/2023]
Abstract
Historical DNA (hDNA), obtained from museum and herbarium specimens, has yielded spectacular new insights into the history of organisms. This includes documenting historical genetic erosion and extinction, discovering species new to science, resolving evolutionary relationships, investigating epigenetic effects, and determining origins of infectious diseases. However, the development of best-practices in isolating, processing, and analyzing hDNA remain under-explored, due to the substantial diversity of specimen preparation types, tissue sources, archival ages, and collecting histories. Thus, for hDNA to reach its full potential, and justify the destructive sampling of the rarest specimens, more experimental work using time-series collections, and the development of improved methods to correct for data asymmetries and biases due to DNA degradation are required.
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