A study reported in the August 8th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, reveals the complete mitochondrial genome of a 38,000-year-old Neandertal. The findings open a window into the Neandertals’ past and helps answer lingering questions about our relationship to them. ‘ For the first time, we’ve built a sequence from ancient DNA that is essentially without error,’ said Richard Green of Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. The key is that they sequenced the Neandertal mitochondria-powerhouses of the cell with their own DNA including 13 protein-coding genes-nearly 35 times over. That impressive coverage allowed them to sort out those differences between the Neandertal and human genomes resulting from damage to the degraded DNA extracted from ancient bone versus true evolutionary changes. Although it is well established that Neandertals are the hominid form most closely related to present-day humans, their exact relationship to us remains uncertain, according to the researchers. The notion that Neandertals and humans may have ‘mixed’ is still a matter of some controversy. Analysis of the new sequence confirms that the mitochondria of Neandertal’s falls outside the variation found in humans today, offering no evidence of admixture between the […]