Museomics and Genetic Analysis of Historical Specimens
Summary
Museomics leverages advances in high-throughput sequencing and targeted enrichment to retrieve genomic information from museum and archival specimens that were collected decades or centuries ago. By analysing historical DNA (hDNA), researchers can reconstruct past genetic diversity, resolve phylogenetic relationships, document genetic erosion, and trace the emergence and spread of pathogens. The field addresses significant challenges posed by DNA degradation, fragmentation and chemical modification resulting from preservation methods and specimen age. Methodological innovations—including optimised extraction protocols, hybridisation-capture of selected loci, and specialised bioinformatic pipelines—have improved data recovery and accuracy. Museomic studies inform conservation strategies by revealing baseline levels of genetic variation prior to recent anthropogenic impacts, and they enhance taxonomic frameworks through sequencing of type specimens. Furthermore, insights into host–pathogen co-evolution and epigenetic signals preserved in historical material underscore the broad applicability of museomics to ecology, evolution and public health.
Research from Nature Portfolio
Recent work has systematically compared DNA extraction methods on degraded mammalian skin specimens from both museum collections and recent roadkill. Analyses of European hedgehog samples demonstrated that phenol–chloroform and silica-column protocols outperform magnetic bead-based approaches in yield, purity and fragment length. The study emphasised that commercial silica-column kits can provide longer DNA fragments suitable for downstream sequencing, while maintaining safety and reproducibility. These findings offer clear guidelines for selecting extraction workflows that maximise genomic data recovery from precious historical samples.
Museomics and Genetic Analysis of Historical Specimens publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in museomics and genetic analysis of historical specimens across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Museomics: Genomic analyses of DNA extracted from museum or archival specimens.
Historical DNA (hDNA): DNA recovered from preserved biological material that is often fragmented or chemically modified.
Type specimen: Preserved organism designated as the reference example for a species’ formal description.
Sequence capture: Targeted enrichment technique that isolates specific genomic regions for sequencing, often via hybridisation probes.
Amplicon capture: Retrieval of predefined DNA fragments using PCR-based or hybridisation-based approaches to enrich target loci prior to sequencing.
References
- An evaluation of DNA extraction methods on historical and roadkill mammalian specimen. Scientific Reports (2023).
- Improving the gold standard in NCBI GenBank and related databases: DNA sequences from type specimens and type strains. Systematic Biology (2023).
- Sequence capture: Obsolete or irreplaceable? A thorough validation across phylogenetic distances and its applicability to hybrids and allopolyploids. Molecular Ecology Resources (2023).
- Mining museums for historical DNA: advances and challenges in museomics. Trends in Ecology & Evolution (2021).
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