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The faces of three men who lived in ancient Egypt over 2,000 years ago have been brought to life. Digital reconstructions show the men at 25, based on DNA data extracted from their mummified remains.
The mummies were from Abousir el-Meleq, an ancient Egyptian city located on a floodplain south of Cairo, and they were buried between 1380 BC. sequenced the mummies DNA in 2017; it was the first successful reconstruction of the genome of an ancient Egyptian mummy, Live Science Reported at the time.
And now, researchers at Parabon NanoLabs, a DNA technology company in Reston, Va., Have used this genetic data to create 3D models of the mummy’s faces through a process called forensic DNA phenotyping. , which uses genetic analysis to predict the shape of facial features. and other aspects of a person’s physical appearance.
Related: Image gallery: The faces of Egyptian mummies unveiled
“This is the first time that a full DNA phenotyping has been performed on human DNA at this age,” Parabon representatives said. said in a press release. Parabon revealed the faces of the mummies on September 15 at the 32nd International Symposium on Human Identification in Orlando, Florida.
Scientists used a phenotyping method called Snapshot to predict men’s ancestry, skin color, and facial features. They found that the men had light brown skin with dark eyes and hair; overall, their genetic The make-up was closer to that of modern individuals from the Mediterranean or the Middle East than that of modern Egyptians, ”the statement said.
The researchers then generated 3D meshes describing the facial features of the mummies and calculated heat maps to highlight the differences between the three individuals and refine the details of each face. Parabon’s forensic artist then combined these results with Snapshot’s predictions of skin, eye and hair color.
Working with ancient human DNA can be difficult for two reasons: DNA is often very degraded, and it is usually mixed with bacterial DNA, said Ellen Greytak, director of bioinformatics at Parabon.
“Between these two factors, the amount of human DNA available for sequencing can be very low,” Greytak told Live Science in an email. However, since the vast majority of DNA is shared among all humans, scientists don’t need the entire genome to glean a physical image of a person. Rather, they only need to analyze certain specific points in the genome that differ from person to person, called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Many of these SNPs code for the physical differences between individuals, Greytak said.
However, sometimes ancient DNA does not provide enough SNP to identify a given trait. In these cases, scientists can replace the missing genetic data with substituted values from other nearby SNPs, said Janet Cady, bioinformatics scientist at Parabon. Statistics calculated from thousands of genomes reveal how closely each SNP is associated with an absent neighbor, Cady told Live Science in an email. From there, researchers can make a statistical prediction of what the missing SNP was.
The processes used on these ancient mummies could also help scientists recreate faces to identify modern remains, Greytak told Live Science. Of the 175 or so cold cases that Parabon researchers have helped resolve using genetic genealogy, so far, nine have been analyzed using the techniques in this study, Greytak said.
Originally posted on Live Science.
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