Pääbo S
Nature. 1985;314(6012):644-5. doi: 10.1038/314644a0.
Artificial mummification was practised in Egypt from approximately 2600 BC until the fourth century AD. Because of the dry Egyptian climate, however, there are also many natural mummies preserved from earlier as well as later times. To elucidate whether this unique source of ancient human remains can be used for molecular genetic analyses, 23 mummies were investigated for DNA content. One 2,400-yr-old mummy of a child was found to contain DNA that could be molecularly cloned in a plasmid vector. I report here that one such clone contains two members of the Alu family of human repetitive DNA sequences, as detected by DNA hybridizations and nucleotide sequencing. These analyses show that substantial pieces of mummy DNA (3.4 kilobases) can be cloned and that the DNA fragments seem to contain little or no modifications introduced postmortem.
从大约公元前2600年到公元4世纪，埃及一直有人为制作木乃伊的习俗。然而，由于埃及气候干燥，也有许多不同时期自然形成的木乃伊得以保存下来。为了阐明这一独特的古代人类遗骸来源是否可用于分子遗传学分析，我们对23具木乃伊的DNA含量进行了研究。发现一具2400年前的儿童木乃伊含有能够在质粒载体中进行分子克隆的DNA。我在此报告，通过DNA杂交和核苷酸测序检测，其中一个这样的克隆包含人类重复DNA序列Alu家族的两个成员。这些分析表明，木乃伊的大量DNA片段（3.4千碱基）能够被克隆，并且这些DNA片段似乎几乎没有或根本没有死后引入的修饰。
