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Not likely. Dude to the chemistry of nucleotides, they can degrade in a particular pattern that obscures the ancestral allele. For example the deamination of cy
by searine 11y ago
Not likely. Dude to the chemistry of nucleotides, they can degrade in a particular pattern that obscures the ancestral allele. For example the deamination of cytosine to thymine can leave us with an ambiguity in what in our read for the correct nucleotide is.
Was it thymine? Or was it cytosine that degraded to thymine? That means for literally 50% of the genome we have a huge ambiguity and few ways to tell what it really is.
We can use the ancestral allele from a nearby extant species, but then we miss out on all the extinct variation (which is the important stuff).
We can try to increase coverage of the ancient genome to capture loci where cytosines haven't deaminated, but thats tough for a dozen reasons, and in the end you'll still have no confidence in 25% of the genome.
We can get very close to a full ancient genome, but never 100%. Maybe through transgenics, selective breeding, and ancient sequencing we can re-create ancient species, but we will never make them exactly as they once were.
- meric 11y agowe will never make them exactly as they once were And maybe that could be good enough and better than not doing it at all...