BOL: November 2013

700,000 year old horse!!!

Rahul Agarwal — Wed, 27 Nov 2013 12:13:36 -0600

"Ludovic Orlando and Eske Willerslev , Centre for GeoGenetics have beaten sequencing of the ancient DNA record by about 10 times. In collaboration with Danish and international colleagues , they have able to record important genomic changes over the last 700.000 years of evolution of the horse lineage."

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v499/n7456/full/nature12323.html

http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/5052/20131123/oldest-dna-sequenced-done-breakthrough-technology.htm

http://geogenetics.ku.dk/latest-news/a-700.000-year-old-horse-gets-its-genome-sequenced/

DNA tale of 3 to 4 years old Serbia boy

Rahul Agarwal — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 17:34:00 -0600

The genome of a young boy found underground at Mal’ta near Lake Baikal of eastern Siberia around 24,000 years ago came out as close relative of Europeans and Native Indians.

Link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/21/science/two-surprises-in-dna-of-boy-found-buried-in-siberia.html?_r=0

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature12736.html

Y-chromosome is worthless!!!

Rahul Agarwal — Sun, 24 Nov 2013 13:17:27 -0600

The testis determinant factor Sry and the spermatogonial proliferation factor Eif2s3y genes of Y-chromosome play role in sex determination and performing first stage of spermatogenesis respectively.

Paper:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2013/11/20/science.1242544

A-allele of SLC24A5 gene is found to be responsible for variation in skin color of South-East Asians and Europeans

Rahul Agarwal — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 21:02:27 -0600

Key finding:

rs1426654 SNP of SLC24A5 gene is decider of skin pigmentation variation in South Asia
rs1426654-A allele is widely spread throughout the Indian subcontinent
Skin pigmentation is also account by the combination of processes like selection and demographic history of populations affected by their language and origin
Sign of positive selection in Europeans, Middle East, Pakistan, Central Asia and North India but not in South India
In European , A-allele is almost reached to fixation

Paper:

http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1003912