For Yous Data - 22,000-Year-Old Panda From Cave Inwards Southern China Belongs To Distinct, Long-Lost Lineage

Researchers who've analyzed ancient mitochondrial (mt)DNA isolated from a 22,000-year-old panda constitute inwards Cizhutuo Cave inwards the Guangxi Province of China--a identify where no pandas alive today--have revealed a novel lineage of giant panda. The report, published inwards Current Biology, shows that the ancient panda separated from present-day pandas 144,000 to 227,000 years ago, suggesting that it belonged to a distinct grouping non constitute today. The newly sequenced mitochondrial genome represents the oldest deoxyribonucleic acid testify from pandas.

Photograph of the Cizhutuo fossil [Credit: Yingqi Zhang as well as Yong Xu]

"Using a unmarried consummate mtDNA sequence, nosotros honor a distinct mitochondrial lineage, suggesting that the Cizhutuo panda, field genetically to a greater extent than closely related to present-day pandas than other bears, has a deep, separate history from the mutual ancestor of present-day pandas," says Qiaomei Fu from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "This actually highlights that nosotros bespeak to sequence to a greater extent than deoxyribonucleic acid from ancient pandas to actually capture how their genetic multifariousness has changed through fourth dimension as well as how that relates to their current, much to a greater extent than restricted as well as fragmented habitat."

Very lilliputian has been known well-nigh pandas' past, peculiarly inwards regions exterior of their electrical current hit inwards Shaanxi say or Gansu as well as Sichuan provinces. Evidence suggests that pandas inwards the by were much to a greater extent than widespread, merely it's been unclear how those pandas were related to pandas of today.

In the novel study, the researchers used sophisticated methods to fish mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid from the ancient cave specimen. That's a item challenge because the specimen comes from a subtropical environment, which makes preservation as well as recovery of deoxyribonucleic acid difficult.

Photograph of the Cizhutuo cave [Credit: Yingqi Zhang]

The researchers successfully sequenced nearly 150,000 deoxyribonucleic acid fragments as well as aligned them to the giant panda mitochondrial genome reference sequence to recover the Cizhutuo panda's consummate mitochondrial genome. They thence used the novel genome along alongside mitochondrial genomes from 138 present-day bears as well as 32 ancient bears to build a menage unit of measurement tree.

Their analysis shows that the separate betwixt the Cizhutuo panda as well as the ancestor of present-day pandas goes dorsum well-nigh 183,000 years. The Cizhutuo panda equally good possesses eighteen mutations that would alter the construction of proteins across 6 mitochondrial genes. The researchers say those amino acid changes may hold upward related to the ancient panda's distinct habitat inwards Guangxi or peradventure climate differences during the Last Glacial Maximum.

The findings propose that the ancient panda's maternal lineage had a long as well as unique history that differed from the maternal lineages leading to present-day panda populations. The researchers say that their success inwards capturing the mitochondrial genome equally good suggests that they powerfulness successfully isolate as well as analyze deoxyribonucleic acid from the ancient specimen's much to a greater extent than expansive nuclear genome.

"Comparing the Cizhutuo panda's nuclear deoxyribonucleic acid to present-day genome-wide information would permit a to a greater extent than thorough analysis of the evolutionary history of the Cizhutuo specimen, equally good equally its shared history alongside present-day pandas," Fu says.

Source: Cell Press [June 18, 2018]


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