Ancient DNA from archaeological and paleontological remains. Criteria necessary to support the authenticity of DNA sequences retrieved from ancient specimens. The laboratory of paleogenetics. Molecular methods in paleogenetics. Outlines of bioinformatics methods for reconstruction of consensus sequences.
David Caramelli. Antropologia Molecolare - Manuale di base. Firenze University Press 2009
David Caramelli & Martina Lari. Il DNA antico: metodi di analisi e applicazioni. Angelo Pontecorboli 2004
Mark Stoneking. An Introduction to Molecular Anthropology. Wiley-Blackwell 2016
Learning Objectives
Knowledge acquired:
Genetic analyses on ancient and degraded biological remains for evolutionary studies on human samples and applications (e.g. forensics).
Competence acquired:
DNA extraction, quantification, amplification and sequencing from human remains; principles of Next Generation Sequencing; outlines of bioinformatics for reconstruction and analysis of genomic sequences from ancient samples.
Skills acquired (at the end of the course):
Workflow from the fossil to the molecule; using of innovative bimolecular technologies to characterize ancient genomes in both evolutionary and applicatory studies.
Prerequisites
Courses to be used as requirements (required and/or recommended)
Total hours of the course (including the time spent in attending lectures, seminars, private study, examinations, etc...): 150
Hours reserved to private study and other individual formative activities: 102
Contact hours for: Lectures (hours): 44
Contact hours for: Laboratory (hours): 4
Further information
Frequency of lectures, practice and lab:
4 hour of lessons per week; Highly recommended.
Students will be provided with slides presented during the lessons and the scientific papers discussed during the course
Teaching tools:
Molecular Anthropology/paleogenetics Lab
Type of Assessment
Oral examination. Open questions with request to substantiate the answers. Comprehension and oral presentation of at least one scientific paper.
Course program
Paleogenetics and ancient DNA: potentialities and limitations. Characteristics of ancient DNA. The contamination. Criteria of authentication of the results. Paleogenetic lab’s organization and workflow of an ancient DNA study.
Molecular technologies for the analysis of ancient DNA: samples preparation; DNA extraction; PCR and molecular cloning; Sanger sequencing; software for sequence data analysis and determination of consensus sequences. Next Generation Sequencing (NGS): principles and platforms; library preparation; quantification by realtime qPCR; hybridization capture of the mitochondrial genome by biotinylated probes; outlines of bioinformatic workflow for mitochondrial genome reconstruction.