Non-Destructive Sampling of Ancient Insect DNA

Studies on the DNA of very old insects are challenging. This is because scientists must be careful not to destroy the specimens when taking samples. Recently, an extraction protocol which may not cause visual damage to the insect was tested on historic museum beetles dating back to AD1820.

The DNA extraction procedure was tested on two types of samples. The two samples were found in central Alaska and the Far East of Siberia.One sample of beetles were collected between AD 1820 and AD 2006 and the other sample from 26,000 years ago.

The results concluded that the procedure is 100% successful for insects up to as far back as AD1820 (refer to figure 1) but not as successful for the older samples dating back to 26,000 years ago.



Figure 1: Photographs of a) Harpalus latus, CFx7.2 and b) Otiorhynchus sulcatus, CFx7.16 after overnight treatment in the extraction buffer. No visual damage is seen on the specimens

Blog post by David Rowley. S41172793.

visit http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0005048 for original article.