Life
RNA, which manages the activity of DNA, is a important part of structure an organism – and now scientists haveactually drawnout some from an extinct animal for the veryfirst time
By Jeanne Timmons
This thylacine hasactually been in the Swedish Museum of Natural History’s collection for over a century
Emilio Mármol Sánchez /Panagiotis Kalogeropoulos
RNA taken from the desiccated stays of a thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, might yield a brand-new understanding of the types, which was stated extinct over 40 years back. This is the veryfirst time RNA hasactually been recuperated from an extinct animal, and the method might aid our understanding of infection development and evenmore questionable de-extinction efforts.
Thylacines were native to the Australian mainland and surrounding islands. While these animals were called Tasmanian tigers by European colonists, they were infact marsupials, a group of mammals, such as kangaroos, that normally have a pouch. The last recognized thylacine passedaway in a zoo in 1936 and the types was formally stated extinct in 1982.
Emilio Mármol Sánchez, then at Stockholm University in Sweden, and his coworkers drawnout, sequenced and evaluated RNA from a thylacine that hadactually been kept in the collection of the Swedish Museum of Natural History for 130 years.
Before now, RNA had just been taken from living organisms and a coupleof ancient plants. While scientists had formerly extrac