De-extinction of woolly mammoth closer as scientists extract RNA

"The world's oldest RNA - an essential nucleic acid present in all living cells - has been extracted from the extinct woolly mammoth, a new study reveals. Researchers in Sweden and Denmark have for the first time managed to successfully isolate and sequence RNA molecules from the 13ft-tall Ice Age beasts. Representing the oldest RNA sequences ever recovered, they come from mammoth tissue preserved in the Siberian permafrost for nearly 40,000 years."

"'[Scientists] will need to attain a much more comprehensive knowledge of the biology of such extinct species - that is, information not only about which or where the genes are in the genome and what mutations differ between those and their modern living relatives, but also how these genes were expressed, regulated and dynamically functioning."

The world's oldest RNA was isolated and sequenced from woolly mammoth tissue preserved in Siberian permafrost for nearly 40,000 years. RNA molecules perform many cellular roles, including relaying instructions to build proteins and regulating gene expression. RNA sequences can reveal how genes were expressed, regulated, and dynamically functioned, providing information beyond what DNA sequences alone can show. Such RNA data could inform efforts to resurrect extinct species by clarifying expression and regulatory patterns that determine biological traits. Woolly mammoths were elephant relatives about four metres tall and weighing around six tons, widespread across northern Eurasia and North America during the last Ice Age and coexisting with early humans who hunted them and used their tusks and bones.

Read at Mail Online