据7月17日的《科学》杂志报道说，一种对古代DNA序列测试的新的方法使得一个研究小组的成员能够从6个尼安德特人的化石中获得完整或近乎完整的线粒体DNA基因组。
对从西班牙到俄罗斯的整个尼安德特人的地理活动范围中的线粒体DNA多元性的新的分析表明，这种古代人类的基因多元性只是现代人类线粒体中所见到的多元性的1/3。 Adrian Briggs及其同僚说，这种低度的多元性表明，存在于3万8000年至7万年前的尼安德特人的人数比现代人类或人猿数要少的多，其女性可能不到3500个。
研究人员研发出一种他们称之为引物延伸捕获（PEC）的目标测序方法，这种方法可以从化石标本中所获的高度降解的DNA库中分离出特别的DNA序列。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
Science 17 July 2009:DOI: 10.1126/science.1174462
Targeted Retrieval and Analysis of Five Neandertal mtDNA Genomes
Adrian W. Briggs,1,* Jeffrey M. Good,1 Richard E. Green,1 Johannes Krause,1 Tomislav Maricic,1 Udo Stenzel,1 Carles Lalueza-Fox,2 Pavao Rudan,3 Dejana Brajkovi,4 eljko Kuan,3 Ivan Gui,3 Ralf Schmitz,5,6 Vladimir B. Doronichev,7 Liubov V. Golovanova,7 Marco de la Rasilla,8 Javier Fortea,8 Antonio Rosas,9 Svante P??bo1
Analysis of Neandertal DNA holds great potential for investigating the population history of this group of hominins, but progress has been limited due to the rarity of samples and damaged state of the DNA. We present a method of targeted ancient DNA sequence retrieval that greatly reduces sample destruction and sequencing demands and use this method to reconstruct the complete mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genomes of five Neandertals from across their geographic range. We find that mtDNA genetic diversity in Neandertals that lived 38,000 to 70,000 years ago was approximately one-third of that in contemporary modern humans. Together with analyses of mtDNA protein evolution, these data suggest that the long-term effective population size of Neandertals was smaller than that of modern humans and extant great apes.
1 Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany.
2 Institute of Evolutionary Biology, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 08003 Barcelona, Spain.
3 Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zrinski trg 11, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
4 Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Institute for Quaternary Paleontology and Geology, Ante Kovaia 5, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
5 Landschaftsverband Rheinland Landesmuseum, D-53115 Bonn, Germany.
6 Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, University of Tübingen, Germany.
7 Laboratory of Prehistory, St. Petersburg, Russia.
8 área de Prehistoria Departamento de Historia Universidad de Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain.
9 Departamento de Paleobiología, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, Spain.
