ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2012
The half-life of DNA in bone: measuring decay kinetics in 158 dated fossils.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 191 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
191 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A Beginner's Guide for Using Bone in Marine Mammal Research.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Guideline
- Substrate-Dependent Variation in Environmental DNA Persistence and Degradation From a Small Mammal.Molecular ecology resources · 2026Article
- Historical Plant Embryos as Alternative Sources of Ancient DNA for Whole Genome Sequencing.Molecular ecology resources · 2026Article
- Ribonucleotide errors, RNase HII, and ribonucleotide excision repair.Critical reviews in biochemistry and molecular biology · 2026Review
- Ancient DNA analyses of remains of the Medici family (16iScience · 2026Article
- Development and Validation of PCR-Based Ancient DNA Analysis for Italian and Western Balkan Archaeological Collections.Balkan journal of medical genetics : BJMG · 2026Article
- External Entropy Production and Human Evolution Toward Multi-Body Life.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Gungnir codec enabling high error-tolerance and low-redundancy DNA storage through substantial computing power.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Patterns of aDNA damage through time and environments-lessons from herbarium specimens.GigaScience · 2026Article
- sedimix: a workflow for the analysis of hominin nuclear DNA sequences from sediments.Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Assessing the feasibility of machine learning for ancient DNA age prediction: Limitations and insights.Biology methods & protocols · 2026Article
- Unlocking natural history collections to improve eDNA reference databases and biodiversity monitoring.Bioscience · 2025Article
- Trade-offs in model compression for sequencing data-carrying DNA.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Prior knowledge on context-driven DNA fragmentation probabilities can improve de novo genome assembly algorithms.BMC bioinformatics · 2025Article
- A compact cassette tape for DNA-based data storage.Science advances · 2025Article
- Destructive and Non-Destructive Methods for aDNA Isolation from Teeth and Their Analysis: A Comparison.Genes · 2025Article
- The First Whole Genome Sequencing of Historical Lichen Specimens Enables Genome-Wide Analysis of Fungal and Algal Symbionts.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Analysis of Selective Pressure on Ancient Human Mitochondrial Genomes Reveals the Presence of Widespread Sequencing Artefacts.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Using sedimentary ancient DNA in coastal and marine contexts to explore past human-environmental interactions in Australia.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Application of Free and Encapsulated DNA Tracers in Surface Water Studies in Lithuanian Climatic Conditions.Biomolecules · 2025Article
131 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Claims of extreme survival of DNA have emphasized the need for reliable models of DNA degradation through time. By analysing mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 158 radiocarbon-dated bones of the extinct New Zealand moa, we confirm empirically a long-hypothesized exponential decay relationship. The average DNA half-life within this geographically constrained fossil assemblage was estimated to be 521 years for a 242 bp mtDNA sequence, corresponding to a per nucleotide fragmentation rate (k) of 5.50 × 10(-6) per year. With an effective burial temperature of 13.1°C, the rate is almost 400 times slower than predicted from published kinetic data of in vitro DNA depurination at pH 5. Although best described by an exponential model (R(2) = 0.39), considerable sample-to-sample variance in DNA preservation could not be accounted for by geologic age. This variation likely derives from differences in taphonomy and bone diagenesis, which have confounded previous, less spatially constrained attempts to study DNA decay kinetics. Lastly, by calculating DNA fragmentation rates on Illumina HiSeq data, we show that nuclear DNA has degraded at least twice as fast as mtDNA. These results provide a baseline for predicting long-term DNA survival in bone.
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