Extraction of Ancient DNA from Plant Remains

Nathan Wales; Logan Kistler

doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-9176-1_6

Extraction of Ancient DNA from Plant Remains

Methods Mol Biol. 2019:1963:45-55. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-9176-1_6.

Authors

Nathan Wales^{1

2

3}, Logan Kistler⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
² Laboratory of Molecular Anthropology and Image Synthesis, University Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France.
³ Department of Archaeology, University of York, York, UK.
⁴ Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA. KistlerL@si.edu.

PMID: 30875043
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4939-9176-1_6

Abstract

Ancient plant remains from archaeological sites, paleoenvironmental contexts, and herbaria provide excellent opportunities for interrogating plant genetics over Quaternary timescales using ancient DNA (aDNA)-based analyses. A variety of plant tissues, preserved primarily by desiccation and anaerobic waterlogging, have proven to be viable sources of aDNA. Plant tissues are anatomically and chemically diverse and therefore require optimized DNA extraction approaches. Here, we describe a plant DNA isolation protocol that performs well in most contexts. We include recommendations for optimization to retain the very short DNA fragments that are expected to be preserved in degraded tissues.

Keywords: Ancient plant DNA; Archaeobotany; Archaeogenomics; DNA extraction; Paleoethnobotany.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

DNA, Ancient / analysis*
DNA, Ancient / isolation & purification*
DNA, Plant / analysis*
DNA, Plant / isolation & purification*
Plants / classification
Plants / genetics*
Specimen Handling / methods*

Substances

DNA, Ancient
DNA, Plant