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I've heard that there is a hard limit of about 1 million years to recover ancient DNA because of deterioration processes [1]. Wouldn't their DNA have deteriorat
by est31 6y ago
I've heard that there is a hard limit of about 1 million years to recover ancient DNA because of deterioration processes [1]. Wouldn't their DNA have deteriorated by now? Or is it being constantly repaired?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_DNA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_DNA
- Knufen 6y agoYou can 'reverse engineer' DNA. Though the DNA strand itself deteriorates rather quickly given the time scales. The peptide bond are extremely robust and can be used to recreate the original DNA string or at least some semblance of it.
- gus_massa 6y agoSome parts of the DNA are not transcribed, for example the "Promoters" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promoter_(genetics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promoter_(genetics) They are important so some proteins are build only when the they are needed. For a more concrete example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac_operon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac_operon
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- senkora 6y agoThey seem to speculate that the cells have been in a low-energy state where they either divide very slowly or spend all of their energy repairing broken molecules, which would presumably include their own DNA. My own (baseless) speculation: Maybe the population was originally much larger, and the surviving cells have been maintaining the energy to live by slowly cannibalizing each other over millions of years?
- Jabbles 6y agoIt's probably being constantly repaired - though ofc I have no knowledge of these particular microbes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_repair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_repair
- vikramkr 6y agoIf the microbes were dead then yes. If they are still alive, presumably they've been doing a basic level of life stuff for the past 100 million years which involves replicating and preserving DNA.