Putative ancient microorganisms from amber nuggets
- Patricia Veiga Crespo
- Lucía Blasco
- Margarita Poza
- Tomás González Villa
ISSN: 1618-1905
Año de publicación: 2007
Volumen: 10
Número: 2
Páginas: 117-122
Tipo: Artículo
Otras publicaciones en: International microbiology: official journal of the Spanish Society for Microbiology
Resumen
Evolutionary microbiology studies based on the isolation of ancient DNA and/or microbial samples are scarce due to the difficulty of finding well preserved biological specimens. However, amber is a fossil resin with natural preserving properties for microbial cells and DNA. The visualization by transmission electron microscopy of different microorganismlike specimens found in amber nuggets from both the Miocene and the Cretaceous periods was accompanied by studies of ancient DNA obtained from the nuggets. After the design of specific primers based on the present sequences of both genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the ancestral AGP2 sequence from the Miocene, as well as the 18S rRNA from the Cretaceous, were amplified.