Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology, University of Otago, 270 Great King Street, 9016 Dunedin, New Zealand.
Department of Biology, The University of York, Wentworth Way, Heslington, YO10 5DD, York, UK.
Genes (Basel). 2010 Jul 28;1(2):227-43. doi: 10.3390/genes1020227.
The invention of next-generation-sequencing has revolutionized almost all fields of genetics, but few have profited from it as much as the field of ancient DNA research. From its beginnings as an interesting but rather marginal discipline, ancient DNA research is now on its way into the centre of evolutionary biology. In less than a year from its invention next-generation-sequencing had increased the amount of DNA sequence data available from extinct organisms by several orders of magnitude. Ancient DNA research is now not only adding a temporal aspect to evolutionary studies and allowing for the observation of evolution in real time, it also provides important data to help understand the origins of our own species. Here we review progress that has been made in next-generation-sequencing of ancient DNA over the past five years and evaluate sequencing strategies and future directions.
下一代测序技术的发明几乎彻底改变了遗传学的所有领域，但受益最多的还是古 DNA 研究领域。古 DNA 研究从一个有趣但相对边缘化的领域起步，现在正走向进化生物学的中心。自发明以来不到一年的时间里，下一代测序技术将已灭绝生物的 DNA 序列数据量增加了几个数量级。古 DNA 研究不仅为进化研究增加了时间维度，使人们能够实时观察进化，还为了解我们人类自身的起源提供了重要数据。在这里，我们回顾了过去五年中在古 DNA 下一代测序方面取得的进展，并评估了测序策略和未来方向。
