Targeted capture of ancient DNA from archaeological grape pips

Nathan Wales, GeoGenetics lab, Natural History Museum of Denmark
(http://geogenetics.ku.dk/research_groups/gilbert_groups/)

Résumé :

Ancient DNA (aDNA) research has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, in large part due to the maturation of high-throughput sequencing platforms, but also from methodological improvements in aDNA extraction, library preparation, and bioinformatical analyses. In addition to enabling well-publicized discoveries in human evolution, these developments have also allowed researchers to study archaeological plant remains in exciting new ways. This presentation will focus on the challenges of working on archaeological plant remains, and discuss the cutting-edge methods being used at our aDNA laboratory at the University of Copenhagen, including DNA library preparation and targeted capture. Two case studies will be discussed to demonstrate the research potential of these approaches: the evolution of maize and our ongoing collaboration on grape domestication. While originally developed for archaeological samples, many of the presented methods are relevant to other subfields in genetics, and may be useful for designing experiments that will include challenging specimens with PCR inhibitors, targeted capture of specific loci, and multiplexed samples.

Contact : Roberto.Bacilieri@supagro.inra.fr