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Have you ever imagined that an organism the size of a beetle can help humans detect organisms that lived somewhere before by their genotype? How can the beetle contribute to this task?
It appears that scientists will soon have a new assistant if they want to identify creatures that previously lived at a site. This new assistant is the beetle, whose researchers recently discovered that your gut has the ability to preserve the genetic makeup of the DNA of what you eat, according to the ScienceMag website.
For years, researchers used to examine soil and water samples for organisms that lived in an area in order to study its biodiversity. Scientists trace the DNA of living organisms to perform genetic makeup (DNA) analysis in an effort to identify them.
The ability to extract DNA from solid soil remains rare, and scientists have found it difficult to extract it from mosquito blood to reveal the identity of the organism that was bitten by it, especially if there are people in the same place who may have been bitten by the same mosquitoes.
This prompted Rosie Drinkwater, a molecular biology researcher at Britain’s Queen Mary University, to test the beetle’s intestines as a DNA-rich alternative, as these organisms feed on the excrement of other organisms.
To see the full news on the DW website in Arabic, click here
