Peculiarities of Working with Ancient DNA

This year Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to Swedish paleogeneticist Svante Pääbo demonstrated the significance of ancient genomes investigation, shedding bright light to the aDNA science. As an ancient DNA study has evolved from the 1980s to the present days it has experienced peak of inflated expectations, dramatic fall to trough of disillusionment and slope of enlightenment with exponential data accumulation after the successful introduction of NGS approach. Today ancient DNA study is a rapidly developing and facilitated by advanced technologies science that challenges our assumptions about the past by analyzing over a million-year-old ancient specimens. Here we provide an overview of peculiar properties of ancient DNA analysis of human and microbes genomes.