Discovery of lost diversity of paternal horse lineages using ancient DNA

作者：Lippold Sebastian^*; Knapp Michael; Kuznetsova Tatyana; Leonard Jennifer A; Benecke Norbert; Ludwig Arne; Rasmussen Morten; Cooper Alan; Weinstock Jaco; Willerslev Eske; Shapiro Beth; Hofreiter Michael

来源：Nature Communications, 2011, 2: 450.

DOI：10.1038/ncomms1447

Modern domestic horses display abundant genetic diversity within female-inherited mitochondrial DNA, but practically no sequence diversity on the male-inherited Y chromosome. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain this discrepancy, but can only be tested through knowledge of the diversity in both the ancestral (pre-domestication) maternal and paternal lineages. As wild horses are practically extinct, ancient DNA studies offer the only means to assess this ancestral diversity. Here we show considerable ancestral diversity in ancient male horses by sequencing 4 kb of Y chromosomal DNA from eight ancient wild horses and one 2,800-year-old domesticated horse. Both ancient and modern domestic horses form a separate branch from the ancient wild horses, with the Przewalski horse at its base. Our methodology establishes the feasibility of re-sequencing long ancient nuclear DNA fragments and demonstrates the power of ancient Y chromosome DNA sequence data to provide insights into the evolutionary history of populations.

• 出版日期2011-8