Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

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Public Library of Science, PLoS ONE, 1(8), p. e50961, 2013

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0050961

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Deep Sequencing of RNA from Ancient Maize Kernels

Journal article published in 2013 by Sarah Louise Fordyce, Maria C. Ávila-Arcos, Maria C. Avila Arcos, Maria del Carmen Avila Arcos, Morten Rasmussen, María C. Ávila-Arcos, Enrico Cappellini, J. Alberto Romero-Navarro, Nathan Wales ORCID, David Eugenio Alquezar-Planas, J. Alberto Romero Navarro, Steven Penfield, Terence A. Brown, Jean-Philippe Vielle-Calzada, Rafael Montiel and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

The characterization of biomolecules from ancient samples can shed otherwise unobtainable insights into the past. Despite the fundamental role of transcriptomal change in evolution, the potential of ancient RNA remains unexploited – perhaps due to dogma associated with the fragility of RNA. We hypothesize that seeds offer a plausible refuge for long-term RNA survival, due to the fundamental role of RNA during seed germination. Using RNA-Seq on cDNA synthesized from nucleic acid extracts, we validate this hypothesis through demonstration of partial transcriptomal recovery from two sources of ancient maize kernels. The results suggest that ancient seed transcriptomics may offer a powerful new tool with which to study plant domestication.