A recent article in Nature Communications describes the use of mitochondrial DNA sequencing to study population genomics in ancient civilizations. Mitochondrial DNA from a set of 151 ancient Egyptian mummies from a 1300 year span were sequenced. Radiocarbon dating was used to group the samples into three time periods: Pre-Ptolemaic (New Kingdom, Third Intermediate Period and Late Period), Ptolemaic and Roman Period. Because of the different preservation methods used in preparation of the mummy, some remains still had much of their soft tissue and skull bone preserved, making wide-range analysis possible. Of the series, complete human mitochondrial genomes were sequenced from 90 of the samples evaluated. This ground-breaking effort establishes ancient Egyptian mummies as a genetic source to study ancient human history and offers the perspective of deciphering Egypt’s past at a genome-wide level.
The 90 mitochondrial genomes were then grouped based on radiocarbon dates and then checked for genetic differentiation and homogeneity to determine which population groups were present amongst the samples. Historically, Egypt has served as a crossroads for interaction between Africa, Asia and Europe. As such, it has a long and rich population history. Detailed analyses reveal that ancient Egyptians shared more ancestry with Near Easterners than present-day Egyptians, who received additional sub-Saharan and non-African ancestries in more recent times, attributed to trans-Saharan slave trade and the Islamic expansion, respectively.
Are you doing Next-Gen sequencing? Don’t forget you can evaluate these data for both copy number and sequence variants using Nexus Copy Number 9.0!
