Neanderthal genome already giving up its secrets

Half the Neanderthal genome has been decoded and the rest should be sequenced by year's end, a scientist involved in the project told a human evolution conference last week.Researchers will roll out a rough draft of the Neanderthal nuclear genome after their sequencers have read every letter in the genome on average once - "1x coverage" in genomics speak.However, the fragmentary state of the DNA sample - from bones recovered in Czech Republic - means that the first draft will offer only a tantalizing glimpse of the genome to researchers who hope to better understand Neanderthal biology and human evolution.Some 38,000 years of decay has left the DNA in tatters and strewn with contamination from bacteria and human handlers."It's not like sequencing any other genome," says Adrian Briggs, a researcher at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who is involved in the project, along with colleagues Edward Green and Svante Pääbo.

The rest of the article is very interesting, discussing how errors are removed from mapping, and when we will have sufficiently accurate genetic mapping.  Pooch.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16224-neanderthal-genome-already-giving-up-its-secrets.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=life

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