Oetzi the Iceman’s nuclear genome gives new insights
By Jason Palmer
New clues have emerged in what could be described as the world’s oldest murder case: that of Oetzi the “Iceman”, whose 5,300-year-old body was discovered frozen in the Italian Alps in 1991.
Oetzi’s full genome has now been reported in Nature Communications.
It reveals that he had brown eyes, “O” blood type, was lactose intolerant, and was predisposed to heart disease.
They also show him to be the first documented case of infection by a Lyme disease bacterium.
Analysis of series of anomalies in the Iceman’s DNA also revealed him to be more closely related to modern inhabitants of Corsica and Sardinia than to populations in the Alps, where he was unearthed.
The study reveals the fuller genetic picture as laid out in the nuclei of Oetzi’s cells.
This nuclear DNA is both rarer and typically less well-preserved than the DNA within mitochondria, the cell’s “power plants”, which also contain DNA.