Hereditary information from the hair of preserved animal held in Swedish and US museum was extracted by the International team of scientists.
This information allowed the scientist to confirm the tiger's evolutionary relationship to other marsupials.
As reported in Genome Research journal, it may also give idea as why some animals die out. Near identical DNA and very little genetic diversity was found in the two tigers examined.
The Tassie Tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) was looked like a dog with striped like a big cat, but in evolutionary it was found to have little common with either, and more closely realted to koalas and kangaroos.
Last known captive specimen died in 1936 in Hobart Zoo.
The team extracted the DNA from the preserved hair of the tiger. This approach was the same approach that was used to piece together about 80% of wolly mammoth genome, a beast that has disappeared thousand years ago.
Although bacterial DNA will be found in the hair but as Professor Schuster said, "In hair, the bacteria are mostly on the outside, and you can use protocols to decontaminate the hair and once you have done this, you resolve the material from the hair shaft and you retrieve the DNA that was stored on the inside."
The latest research has found a small set of mithocondria genes, the DNA in mithochondria is handed down from mother to offspring. By timing the divergens of species, the team believes that it is possible to show that the tiger's closes living relatives is another marsupial called numbat.
Professor Miller explained that,""The two thylacine sequences were extremely similar to each other, with only five differences in 15,492 nucleotides," This means there is too little genetic diversity to ressist bacterial and other environmental diseases. Eventhough hunting hadn't taken out the species, this species would be extremely vulnerable to bacteria and diseases.
Now, the team is looking at the genomic sequence of Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) which is also believed to have very little genetic diversity between species.
Reference:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7825011.stm
