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| DNA molecule is not alive |
Today's appendices (Appendix Chromosomes, Appendix Locations) show that aeDNA samples can contain modern human DNA segments (the "confirmed:" in the Locations appendix is the result of a copy of the DNA nucleotides at the position in the NUCCORE fasta file compared to the one in the Project ENA PRJEB55522 ERR10493370 fastq file).
But it remains to be seen what would cause catastrophic contamination, as would be required to demonstrate that the sample handlers shed this contamination.
The potential for human eDNA is real:
"The field of environmental DNA (eDNA) is advancing rapidly, yet human eDNA applications remain underutilized and underconsidered. Broader adoption of eDNA analysis will produce many well-recognized benefits for pathogen surveillance, biodiversity monitoring, endangered and invasive species detection, and population genetics. Here we show that deep-sequencing-based eDNA approaches capture genomic information from humans (Homo sapiens) just as readily as that from the intended target species. We term this phenomenon human genetic bycatch (HGB). Additionally, high-quality human eDNA could be intentionally recovered from environmental substrates (water, sand and air), holding promise for beneficial medical, forensic and environmental applications. However, this also raises ethical dilemmas, from consent, privacy and surveillance to data ownership, requiring further consideration and potentially novel regulation. We present evidence that human eDNA is readily detectable from ‘wildlife’ environmental samples as human genetic bycatch, demonstrate that identifiable human DNA can be intentionally recovered from human-focused environmental sampling and discuss the translational and ethical implications of such findings."
(Inadvertent human genomic bycatch and intentional capture, Nature 2023). If 'a' is added (aeDNA) stepping on the toes of "existing people" and right to privacy goes away (especially in really ancient eDNA cases).
So, the aeDNA in this series has only to contend with "is it real Homo sapiens DNA or are the samples contaminated".
And wow the DNA saturation by dogma is unreachable (On The Origin of Genieology).
We know that disasters that bury large portions of the environment, killing everything it buries and causing DNA to do some "time travel" by not going along with the aging being done on DNA at the surface.
What about when cosmic disaster events bury an environment?
Does that change some of the ways of things (Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 11)?
Was that a factor in the Greenland aeDNA?
The previous post in this series is here.
