Elephant DNA Never Forgets

Although the picture is a little clearer, best not call off Scooby and the gang just yet (don't turn around that Mystery Machine Fred!). A recent study at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers have looked at the mitochondrial DNA of isolated elephant populations to look at the breeding history of these species. For some people, this story is interesting enough, for others a dramatic backstory not necessarily highly exaggerated for the purpose of entertainment is necessary. To set the story I choose to do both.

Following the tragic death of Alexander the Great his empire lay in ruins; former generals began snatching up the ruins of the empire and wars broke out over the lands in between kingdoms. In particular Ptolemy and Antiochus met at the battle of Raphia and this is where the mystery begins. Historical accounts go that Ptolemy had 73 African war elephants from what is now Eritrea in North-Eastern Africa, while Antiochus had 102 Asian war elephants. As the account goes, when the two armies met in battle the African war elephants turned around and ran away from the larger Asian war elephants. The problem is: African elephants are generally larger than Asian elephants. So what gives, did Ptolemy just get the short end of the stick at the war elephant store (can you get a refund on some lightly used war elephants?), or was he using a different species of elephant than the historically accepted version (were they savanna elephants or perhaps forest elephants)? Hence the mystery (cue dramatic music).

 

Although research is not necessarily funded just to look into irrelevant historical events, sometimes it has the benefit of making two African war elephants run away with just one Asian war elephant. The research group at the University of Illinois was looking at elephant mitochondrial DNA to study population dynamics and population migration. mtDNA is passed only from mother to offspring, as female elephants stay with the same herd from birth while males may disperse throughout different herds, mtDNA provides a tool to study the breeding dynamics and migration of a specific herd with time. Looking at modern day elephants in Eritrea it was found that the elephants are in fact related to the savanna elephants, and not forest elephants, debunking the explanation that Ptolemy was using a different species of elephants than is historically defined.

Mitochondria have separate DNA from that which is normally contained in the nucleus of our cells. There are several different techniques for specifically separating mtDNA from nuclear DNA during nucleic acid purifications. In order to screen many, many members of a candidate herd to generate concrete evidence of evolutionary relationships, high throughput techniques are necessary to solve the bottlenecks associated with manual sample preparations. At Aurora Biomed we are pleased to work with researchers to develop liquid handling automation tailored to specific applications, and development of high throughput protocols to support research workflows. To find out more about Aurora's liquid handling workstations, visit the website at www.aurorabiomed.com.