A simple and effective method to enrich endogenous DNA from mammalian faeces.

Utilization of faeces has long been a popular approach for genetic and ecological studies of wildlife. However, the success of molecular marker genotyping and genome resequencing is often unpredictable due to insufficient enrichment of endogenous DNA in the total faecal DNA that is dominated by bacterial DNA. Here, we report a simple and cheap method named PEERS to predominantly lyse animal cells over bacteria by using sodium dodecyl sulphate so as to discharge endogenous DNA into liquid phase before bacterial DNA.

Improving Species Identification of Ancient Mammals Based on Next-Generation Sequencing Data.

The taxonomical identification merely based on morphology is often difficult for ancient remains. Therefore, universal or specific PCR amplification followed by sequencing and BLAST (basic local alignment search tool) search has become the most frequently used genetic-based method for the species identification of biological samples, including ancient remains. However, it is challenging for these methods to process extremely ancient samples with severe DNA fragmentation and contamination.