The Book of Genesis has instilled wonder for 3,000 years, now it has been superseded by our ability to read the Deity’s own writing …….
Researchers Reconstructing Genome of Extinct Human Population Using 1000 Genomes Data
MONTREAL (GenomeWeb News) – Using sequence data generated for dozens of Puerto Rican parent-child trios through the 1000 Genomes Project, researchers have started to reconstruct the genomes of individuals from an extinct indigenous population known as the Taino, who lived in the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and Lesser Antilles before the Caribbean was colonized by Spanish settlers in the 1500s.
The Taino population appears to have become extinct within around 100 years after they came into contact with Europeans, co-author Jake Byrnes explained during his presentation during an evolutionary genetics session at the International Congress of Human Genetics here this week.
In collaboration with investigators from the 1000 Genomes Project, the University of Puerto Rico, the University of California at San Francisco, and Cornell University, Byrnes and other Stanford University researchers are sifting through low-coverage whole-genome data and higher depth exome sequence data on 70 Puerto Ricans sampled through the 1000 Genomes Project to find and catalog chunks of genomic sequence passed down from Taino ancestors.
This genomic reconstruction is possible because the proportion of Taino ancestry remaining in the Puerto Rican and other Caribbean populations is roughly 10 to 15 percent, Stanford researcher Carlos Bustamante, a leader on the study, said during a media briefing at ICHG yesterday.
The team also found genomic patterns that corresponded to the three-way European, African, and Taino ancestry that exists in the Puerto Rican population. They are now working to reconstruct fine-scale maps of the sequenced individuals’ genomes to