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Summary: BULLETIN OF MARINE SCIENCE, 81(3): 351360, 2007
351Bulletin of Marine Science
© 2007 Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science
ANCIENT DNA TEChNIqUES: AppLICATIONS
FOR DEEp-wATER CORALS
Rhian G. Waller, Jess F. Adkins,
Laura F. Robinson, and Timothy M. Shank
ABSTRACT
The potential applications of ancient DNA (aDNA) techniques have been real-
ized relatively recently, and have been revolutionized by the advent of pCR tech-
niques in the mid 1980s. Although these techniques have been proven valuable in
ancient specimens of up to 100,000 yrs old, their use in the marine realm has been
largely limited to mammals and fish. Using modifications of techniques developed
for skeletons of whales and mammals, we have produced a method for extracting
and amplifying aDNA from sub-fossil (not embedded in rock) deep-water corals
that has been successful in yielding 351 base pairs of the ITS2 region in sub-fossil
Desmophyllum dianthus (Esper, 1794) and Lophelia pertusa (Linnaeus, 1758). The
comparison of DNA sequences from fossil and live specimens resulted in clustering
by species, demonstrating the validity of this new aDNA method. Sub-fossil scler-
actinian corals are readily dated using U-series techniques, and so the abundance
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