Extinct Genomes in PLOS One
A paper published today in PLoS One reports on research that shows the feasibility of taking a gene or genomic region from an extinct species and inserting it into the genome of an extant species and resurrect the extinct species DNA function in the transgenic mice. The extinct species was the Tasmanian tiger or Thylacine (that links to the wikipedia page, anyone want to become the curator for the EOL page which is pretty minimal at this point?) and the ‘surrogate’ species was Mus musculus.
And, as the abstract says,
While other studies have examined extinct coding DNA function in vitro, this is the first example of the restoration of extinct non-coding DNA and examination of its function in vivo. Our method using transgenesis can be used to explore the function of regulatory and protein-coding sequences obtained from any extinct species in an in vivo model system, providing important insights into gene evolution and diversity.
It is an fascinating piece of research.
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