Emilio Mármol Sánchez

I have heard the same joke about my surname like thousand times during my life.

Get a new one!

Mammoth RNA sequenced for the first time, marking a giant leap toward understanding prehistoric life Scientists successfully sequence the RNA from woolly mammoths found in Siberia that lived up between 10,000 thousand and 50,000 years ago.

Good read about mammoth ancient RNAs

www.livescience.com/animals/mamm...

Read the whole paper and more information about my research and ongoing projects at:

emiliomarmol.academicwebsite.com
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

We sincerely thank our funders for trusting in our research ideas and for enabling us to carry out this challenging work. Their support helped us pushing forward the study of ancient #RNA molecules in extinct species.

@vetenskapsradet.bsky.social
@villumfonden.bsky.social
@erc.europa.eu

These are the oldest ancient #RNAs ever sequenced, obtained from the extinct woolly #mammoth 🦣🦣

Many thanks to all the people that contributed to make this groundbreaking work possible.

@cpgsthlm.bsky.social @scilifelab.se @stockholm-uni.bsky.social @ucph.bsky.social @uitnorgesarktiske.bsky.social

a close up of a dog with a blue collar and tag ALT: a close up of a dog with a blue collar and tag

Intriguingly enough, some of these #RNAs indicated that Yuka might have died under quite stressful conditions.

Indeed, claw marks in its skin could indicate that Yuka was attacked by cave lions before its death!! ☠️

Interestingly, we discovered the expression of muscle-specific protein-coding and #microRNA genes. We were even able to detect two completely novel microRNAs solely based on #RNA data!

Yuka was thought to be a female ♀️ mammoth, based on previous external examination. Surprisingly, we found evidence at both #RNA and #DNA levels revealing that Yuka was in fact a male! ♂️

The ancient #RNA sequences from Yuka showed increased chemical damage, as expected for such old molecules.

The best performing sample was mammoth 1, also known as #Yuka, a 5-year-old juvenile woolly mammoth that died nearly 40,000 years ago and that is one of the best preserved specimens ever found.

Only 3 out of the 10 mammoths had #RNA and #DNA of good quality, and the ancient RNA molecules were strongly concentrated in exonic regions.

We extracted both ancient #RNA and #DNA from soft tissues that have been preserved in the Siberian permafrost for thousands of years.

Did we find any mammoth-like molecules? Yes ✅, both in the RNA and DNA fraction, but not for all the mammoths we analyzed.

two mammoths are walking through a snowy field in the mountains ALT: two mammoths are walking through a snowy field in the mountains

We sought to challenge this, and decided to double down the bet to look for ancient #RNA molecules in the extinct woolly mammoth.

We analyzed 10 samples from #mammoths that lived between 10,000 and 50,000 years ago in the Northern region of Siberia during the last Ice Age🥶

a cartoon cat is crying while sitting on a wooden platform ALT: a cartoon cat is crying while sitting on a wooden platform

So far, isolating, sequencing, and analyzing #RNA molecules from old remains was considered such a difficult task full of past failures and only a handful of successes, that researchers seemed to have just lost hope.

a cartoon of homer simpson holding his finger to his lips with the word interesting behind him ALT: a cartoon of homer simpson holding his finger to his lips with the word interesting behind him

So why should we bother about #RNA?

Contrary to #DNA:
📌RNA tells which genes are "turned on".
📌 We can detect tissue-specific gene expression and metabolic changes (stress, infections...)
📌Novel active genes can be found.
📌We can decipher regulatory mechanisms.

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During past years, research focused on ancient #DNA has gained a lot of interest, with dozens of papers being routinely published each year📃

But what about ancient #RNA?
The common preconception is that these molecules, as opposed to DNA, do not last long after cell death.

🦣🧬🦣🤯💥We are pleased to share our new paper about ancient RNA expression profiles from the Woolly Mammoth, now published in Cell @cellpress.bsky.social

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

If you want to know more, read the 🧵 below:

Mapping chromatin structure at base-pair resolution unveils a unified model of cis-regulatory element interactions Li et al. apply base-pair resolution Micro Capture-C ultra to map chromatin contacts between individual motifs within cis-regulatory elements and reveal a unified model of biophysically mediated enhan...

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Functional microRNA targeting without seed pairing Abstract. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) associate with Argonaute (AGO) proteins to serve as guides, directing binding to partially complementary sites in mRNAs, ultim

academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

On an Arctic archipelago, frozen soil may preserve a hidden history of viruses Scientists are hunting for ancient RNA in Svalbard’s permafrost, hoping to shed light on the evolution of viral diseases

www.science.org/content/arti...

The variability of goat microRNA genes is strongly shaped by functional constraints Background MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a type of small non-coding RNAs involved in the post-transcriptional repression of target mRNA transcripts, and responsible for the fine-tuning of numerous molecular ...

Are you interested in microRNAs 🧬 and goats 🐐? We are!!

Then have a look at our preprint on how microRNA mutations segregate worldwide 🌍 in goat populations and the potentially derived consequences of prolonged inbreeding and geographical isolation.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The rise of historical epigenomics and temporal analysis of gene regulation - Genome Biology Complex diseases driven by gene-environment interactions impose a heavy burden on human and animal health. Addressing these challenges requires innovative research. The emerging field of historical epigenomics offers a promising opportunity to link genotypes with phenotypes using preserved biological material. New methods such as historical chromatin profiling in museum specimens provide valuable insights into vertebrate genome regulation. Building on successful work with formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples, we expect growing interest in using historical specimens for biomedical, evolutionary, and ecological research. Applied to historical collections, these tools can provide critical baselines for understanding modern diseases, environmental stressors, and human adaptation.

genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

The world's oldest bacterial DNA found in a million-year-old mammoth!

New results from researchers at #CpgSthlm published in Cell!

Paper:
www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

Have a look at our new 2025 Blog entry from @aarc-community.bsky.social where we interviewed Dr. Pascale Lubbe (@plubbe.bsky.social) about the research project she presented in July 2025 #AaRCTikTalks

www.animal-adna.org/blog/2025/08...

I am starting a computational lab at LIOS, Riga, Latvia, and going to recruit a few people. Please DM if you are interested in a postdoc or PhD position in my Metabolic Research Group within the TARGETWISE project. I can highly recommend Riga, it is a beautiful city with very good living conditions.

Have a look at our new 2025 Blog entry from
@aarc-community.bsky.social where we interviewed PhD Fellow Lydia Hildebrand Furness about the research project she presented in March 2025 #AaRCTikTalks

animal-adna.org/blog/2025/05...

#aDNA #Dugong #conservation

Have a look at our new 2025 Blog entry from
@AaRC_Community where we interviewed Dr. Alexander Salis and Dr. Anna Penna (@apenna.bsky.social‬) about the research project he presented in February 2025 #AaRCTikTalks.

animal-adna.org/blog/2025/05...
animal-adna.org/blog/2025/05...

#aDNA #museomics

On the ancestry and evolution of the extinct dire wolf Dire wolves (Aenocyon dirus) are extinct predators of Pleistocene North America. Although phenotypically similar to living wolves (Canis lupus), dire wolves have yet to be placed confidently in the ca...

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Have a look at our second 2025 Blog entry from @aarc-community.bsky.social where we interviewed Jesse Morin about the research project he presented in January 2025 #AaRCTikTalks.

www.animal-adna.org/blog/2025/03...

#ancientDNA #aDNA #salmon #Tsleil_Waututh

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MSCA Reviewers deffinitely did not like my research proposal.

I will keep trying other ways...