Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany.
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany.
Trends Genet. 2017 Aug;33(8):508-520. doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2017.05.005. Epub 2017 Jul 5.
While a comparatively young area of research, investigations relying on ancient DNA data have been highly valuable in revealing snapshots of genetic variation in both the recent and the not-so-recent past. Born out of a tradition of single-locus PCR-based approaches that often target individual species, stringent criteria for both data acquisition and analysis were introduced early to establish high standards of data quality. Today, the immense volume of data made available through next-generation sequencing has significantly increased the analytical resolution offered by processing ancient tissues and permits parallel analyses of host and microbial communities. The adoption of this new approach to data acquisition, however, requires an accompanying update on methods of DNA authentication, especially given that ancient molecules are expected to exist in low proportions in archaeological material, where an environmental signal is likely to dominate. In this review, we provide a summary of recent data authentication approaches that have been successfully used to distinguish between endogenous and nonendogenous DNA sequences in metagenomic data sets. While our discussion mostly centers on the detection of ancient human and ancient bacterial pathogen DNA, their applicability is far wider.
虽然这是一个相对年轻的研究领域，但基于古 DNA 数据的研究在揭示近期和过去不太遥远的时期的遗传变异方面具有非常高的价值。该领域源于基于单基因座 PCR 的方法的传统，这些方法通常针对单个物种，因此很早就引入了严格的数据获取和分析标准，以建立高标准的数据质量。如今，通过下一代测序获得的大量数据大大提高了处理古代组织提供的分析分辨率，并允许对宿主和微生物群落进行并行分析。然而，这种新的数据获取方法的采用需要对 DNA 验证方法进行相应的更新，特别是因为古分子在考古材料中可能以低比例存在，而且环境信号可能占主导地位。在这篇综述中，我们总结了最近成功用于区分宏基因组数据集中内源性和非内源性 DNA 序列的身份验证方法。虽然我们的讨论主要集中在检测古人类和古细菌病原体 DNA 上，但它们的适用性要广泛得多。
