Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2010 Apr 8;464(7290):894-7.
doi: 10.1038/nature08976. Epub 2010 Mar 24.

The complete mitochondrial DNA genome of an unknown hominin from southern Siberia

Johannes Krause  1 , Qiaomei Fu, Jeffrey M Good, Bence Viola, Michael V Shunkov, Anatoli P Derevianko, Svante Pääbo
Affiliations

The complete mitochondrial DNA genome of an unknown hominin from southern Siberia

Johannes Krause et al. Nature. .

Abstract

With the exception of Neanderthals, from which DNA sequences of numerous individuals have now been determined, the number and genetic relationships of other hominin lineages are largely unknown. Here we report a complete mitochondrial (mt) DNA sequence retrieved from a bone excavated in 2008 in Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia. It represents a hitherto unknown type of hominin mtDNA that shares a common ancestor with anatomically modern human and Neanderthal mtDNAs about 1.0 million years ago. This indicates that it derives from a hominin migration out of Africa distinct from that of the ancestors of Neanderthals and of modern humans. The stratigraphy of the cave where the bone was found suggests that the Denisova hominin lived close in time and space with Neanderthals as well as with modern humans.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Physical features of Denisova mtDNA.
a, b, Nucleotide misincorporation patterns (a) and nucleotide frequencies of the aligned reference sequence (b) at and around the ends of mtDNA fragments sequenced from the Denisova hominin. PowerPoint slide
Figure 2
Figure 2. Distribution of pairwise nucleotide differences.
Pairwise nucleotide differences from all pairs of complete mtDNAs from 54 present-day and one Pleistocene modern human, six Neanderthals and the Denisova hominin are shown. PowerPoint slide
Figure 3
Figure 3. Phylogenetic tree of complete mtDNAs.
The phylogeny was estimated with a Bayesian approach under a GTR+I+Γ model using 54 present-day and one Pleistocene modern human mtDNA (grey), 6 Neanderthals (blue) and the Denisova hominin (red). The tree is rooted with a chimpanzee and a bonobo mtDNA. Posterior probabilities are given for each major node. The map shows the geographical origin of the mtDNAs (24, 25, 32, 44 are in the Americas). Note that two partial mtDNAs sequenced from Teshik Tash and Okladikov Cave in Central Asia fall together with the complete Neanderthal mtDNAs in phylogenies (not shown). PowerPoint slide
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Briggs AW, et al. Targeted retrieval and analysis of five Neandertal mtDNA genomes. Science. 2009;325:318–321. doi: 10.1126/science.1174462. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Derevianko AP, Petrin VT, Rybin EP. The Kara-Bom site and the characteristics of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in the Altai. Archaeol. Ethnol. Anthropol. Eurasia. 2000;2:33–52.
    1. Goebel T, Derevianko AP, Petrin VT. Dating the Middle-to-Upper-Paleolithic Transition at Kara-Bom. Curr. Anthropol. 1993;34:452–458. doi: 10.1086/204192. - DOI
    1. Krause J, et al. Neanderthals in central Asia and Siberia. Nature. 2007;449:902–904. doi: 10.1038/nature06193. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Gabunia L, Vekua A, Lordkipanidze D. The environmental contexts of early human occupation of Georgia (Transcaucasia) J. Hum. Evol. 2000;38:785–802. doi: 10.1006/jhev.1999.0383. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

Substances

Associated data