WG 2.1 – Museum Life

Chair: Freek Bakker,
Wageningen University,
Netherlands

Vice-chair: Scott Miller,
National Museum of Natural History,
Washington DC, USA

The natural history museums of the world hold billions of specimens, a reservoir that would dramatically expedite construction of the reference barcode library bar one fact: the recovery of full-length barcode sequences is impossible using conventional methods because most specimens are old and were often preserved with agents that damage DNA.

The Museum Life Working Group will liberate sequence information from these specimens using two approaches: recovering short sequences connecting type material with newly collected specimens (which will succeed) and recovering full-length barcodes from archival specimens (which is risky). Pilot studies have established that short segments of the barcode region can regularly be recovered from specimens more than a century old. These mini-barcodes are valuable because they allow the connection of type specimens with full-length barcode records from more recently collected representatives of the species.

DNA barcode analysis of type specimens has already begun on a small scale. iBOL will analyze at least 50K specimens by 2014, setting the stage for a subsequent effort to gather barcode records from all type material. iBOL researchers will also make new efforts to recover full-length barcodes from museum specimens. This work will involve using novel sequencing platforms, testing new PCR formulations that repair DNA damage and new polymerases resistant to inhibitors that might prevent amplification of a few intact molecules. These studies will ensure that museum collections play a vital role in validating the assignment of taxonomic names and, potentially, in accelerating construction of the reference library of full-length barcodes.

Goal
Recover partial barcodes from type specimens that will be matched with full-length barcodes from fresh specimens. In additionl, recover full-length barcodes from museum specimens using new PCR formulations that include repair enzymes and engineered polymerases.