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Mars explorers try to rescue a species extinct

Artist's mammoth

first sequenced the genome of an extinct animal, the mammoth

1 ( CET) MIGUEL G. MADRID .- CORRAL

• The work opens the door to the possibility of rescuing the species from extinction
  
• They got the DNA from hair samples frozen for about 20,000 years
  

Not all tear scientific news of an occurrence or a great board full of indecipherable formulas. The story of the first obtaining the genome of an extinct animal began the discovery of a frozen mammoth somewhere in northernmost Siberia. And it ended today with the publication in the journal Nature sequencing of genetic material (nuclear DNA) of the "woolly mammoth, extinct animal that more than 3,500 years.

died a few days ago Michael Crichton, author of science fiction 'Jurassic Park' and it is inevitable that this research brings us to head to this writer. In the famous novel and the film adaptation directed Stephen Spielberg, the DNA came from blood contained a fossilized mosquito amber after biting a dinosaur. In the real case of the mammoth genome, the key has been in the remains of animal hair, a great source of genetic material.

research opens the door to the possibility of rescue from extinction woolly mammoths. However, it is still far for the current Science. Stephan C. Schuster, one of the principal authors of the research, said the potential developments which may bring the next revolution led by Craig Venter after creating first fully synthetic chromosome . "Someone like Venter can develop a quick way to transform the genome of the mammoth we have in the computer in whole chromosomes. "

That would be the first step. Then we also have to figure out how many chromosomes had the mammoth (even relatives, are not necessarily the same as the elephant, as evidenced by the fact that the chimpanzee, has a pair of chromosomes than humans) and housed in an egg I could carry it out. For now, this is just science fiction.

With mammoth hair found in Siberia, has extracted DNA which has sequenced the genome of the animal. "A genetic sequence does not a living organism," says Jeremy Austin, director of the Center for Ancient DNA University of Adelaide (Australia), "we have a partial sequence of the genome of the mammoth and a considerable number of errors, it would be like trying to build a car with 80% of the parts and knowing that some are broken."

appreciation of Austin is very successful, since research has completely deciphered only between 70 and 80% of the genome of the mammoth. "We align the sequences that we had with the available genome of an African elephant (Loxodonta africana), that way we know where to place each piece of string", says Schuster. Due to the huge similarity between the genomes of different vertebrates, whose genetic makeup already known, including human beings, "the missing pieces have been deduced by comparison with other agencies.

The procedure now used by researchers, is somewhat different from that used in the Human Genome Project. Almost any biological sample, is somehow contaminated by bacteria, fungi or other microorganisms, but this has been frozen to 20 degrees below zero for about 20,000 years, as it was the main sample used for the job. But that was not a problem for scientists. The technique used allows to obtain an extract of all the DNA in the hair of the mammoth, break it into separate pieces and then through a computer process, the animal belonging to the Pleistocene, of that from other microscopic organisms.

Once separated, it's time to order the genetic material belonging to the mammoth. To do this, use the elephant genome as a template, allowing out, as noted above, that the sample contains between 70 and 80% of the entire genome. The rest is inferred by comparative complex procedures.

The discrepancy between the genetic makeup of the mammoth and elephant, is half that between chimpanzees and humans, which has shown the evolutionary distance that separates the living relative mammoth closer. According to the authors, both groups have been separated and evolve in different ways for more than 1.5 million years. Evolutionary distance that might make it impossible to reach the dream of reviving the "woolly mammoth" after millennia of extinction.