2019/03/11 by Kazuo Yamagata, Kouhei Nagai, Hiroshi Miyamoto +19 · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Medicine · #Biology #Cell biology #Cell nucleus #DNA #Genetics #Histone #Lamin #Mammoth #Microtubule and mitosis dynamics #Nucleus #Paleontology #Reproductive Biology and Fertility #Sperm and Testicular Function
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41598-019-40546-1
openalex publication_date 2019/03/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/08
The 28,000-year-old remains of a woolly mammoth, named 'Yuka', were found in Siberian permafrost. Here we recovered the less-damaged nucleus-like structures from the remains and visualised their dynamics in living mouse oocytes after nuclear transfer. Proteomic analyses demonstrated the presence of nuclear components in the remains. Nucleus-like structures found in the tissue homogenate were histone- and lamin-positive by immunostaining. In the reconstructed oocytes, the mammoth nuclei showed the spindle assembly, histone incorporation and partial nuclear formation; however, the full activation of nuclei for cleavage was not confirmed. DNA damage levels, which varied among the nuclei, were comparable to those of frozen-thawed mouse sperm and were reduced in some reconstructed oocytes. Our work provides a platform to evaluate the biological activities of nuclei in extinct animal species.