Population Genomics Reveals Elevated Inbreeding and Accumulation of Deleterious Mutations in White Raccoon Dogs.

The formation of animal breeds usually begins with a small subsample from their ancestral population. Deleterious mutations accumulate in the population under genetic drift, inbreeding, and artificial selection during the development and maintenance of traits desired by humans. White raccoon dogs are among the most popular breeds of farmed raccoon dogs, but white raccoon dogs are more susceptible to disease and have a lower reproductive ability.

The complete mitochondrial genome of (Swinhoe, 1866) (Anatidae: Anas).

The complete mitochondrial genome of was first reported. The length of the entire mitochondrial genome was 16,605 base pairs, including 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, two rRNA genes, and a D-loop region. A phylogenetic tree of was constructed with a group of related species in the family of Anatidae, indicating a close genetic relationship between and .

An efficient pipeline for ancient DNA mapping and recovery of endogenous ancient DNA from whole-genome sequencing data.

Ancient DNA research has developed rapidly over the past few decades due to improvements in PCR and next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies, but challenges still exist. One major challenge in relation to ancient DNA research is to recover genuine endogenous ancient DNA sequences from raw sequencing data. This is often difficult due to degradation of ancient DNA and high levels of contamination, especially homologous contamination that has extremely similar genetic background with that of the real ancient 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.