Given the epic failure of the VelociRapture this weekend and my subsequent desire to watch Jurassic Park, I thought that this would probably be a good time to visit that age-old question: can you really make a dinosaur from mosquitoes caught in amber plus some random frog DNA?
While that question seems pretty forthright, it’s actually very complex scientifically. Let’s take it step by step.
Amber
Is amber good at storing DNA and protein?
The answer seems to be yes. The book Evolution of Insects by David A. Grimaldi and Michael S. Engle has a section that discusses using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to amplify DNA found in different insects fossilized in amber. However, the problem was consistently that all samples were contaminated or degraded. Interestingly, the authors state that amino acids seem hardier and stick around longer. It has been suggested that DNA stored in amber is only good for 100,000 years. Not quite long enough to reach back to the Cretaceous period.
Have mosquitos been found with blood inside them?
No, not according to the San Diego Natural History Museum. In addition, according to the SDNHM, no insects in amber have been found that are from the Cretaceous Period.

DNA
How long does it take DNA to degrade?
The answer is not long. I know that we’ve all seen specials on the History Channel about PCR being done on mummies to verify familial relationships. However, if we’re talking about rebuilding a genome, the entirety of an organism’s hereditary information, we’re going to be out of luck very quickly. DNases and RNases go to work very quickly, nomming up the building blocks that make up the genome. If I leave DNA out on my bench overnight, the next morning it is often degraded and non-usable for most sensitive purposes, let alone the possible degradation that would occur after 65 million years.
Another snag with the DNA quality would be the digestive enzymes of the mosquito. Those enzymes go to work very quickly and are very hostile to macromolecules, meaning that DNA wouldn’t hang around all that long in an intact state.
Well, no problem, they used frog DNA to supplement?
That’s actually a big problem. First off, we know now that birds are actually more likely to be evolutionary descendants of dinosaurs. Second, birds are very, very, very far off evolutionary descendants. What this means is that there likely isn’t enough genetic relatedness to substitute even bird DNA for dinosaur DNA. And what you do substitute? The DNA for wings? Tyrannosaurus rex didn’t have wings. Scientists can’t go mucking around adding random sequences from different species. In recent years, it has become increasingly obvious that even what scientists had once called “junk DNA” actually has important sequences that regulate other DNA, so even that isn’t safe to replace.

Amber to DNA to Dinosaur
How do you get from the recreated genome to the dinosaur?
This is the most difficult problem of all. Scientists can use machines to synthesize strands of DNA called Oligonucleotides (Oligo – few or little, nucleotide ““ the bases of DNA = short DNA strands) but how do you get longer strands of DNA, how do you condense those strands into chromosomes? How do you replicate DNA, generate proteins? There is a lot of cellular machinery necessary to get from DNA to organism. DNA must be built into a cell, a process which is called which is called transformation. An egg is specifically what is needed and there aren’t any dinosaur eggs around. There really isn’t anything close to use as a substitute.
Scientists did recently generate an entirely synthetic genome and place it into a bacterium that had had its genome removed. It replicated, though not entirely without problems. Even this giant scientific step forward does not solve the problem of the lack of dinosaur eggs.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to make dinosaurs the way Michael Crichton imagined in Jurassic Park. I know I will never stop loving the movie!
Interesting Note
Most work done with insects in amber is done regarding insect evolution. There is a really awesome NPR story entitled “Insects in Amber Provide Clues to India’s Past“ regarding this subject. I suggest you take a listen!
12 replies on “Can We Really Make Dinosaurs From Mosquitos Trapped in Amber?”
This is a great post! Fascinating. One less nightmare I have to worry about in my lifetime, anyway. :)
[img]http://persephonemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/clever-girl.jpg[/img]
This is so interesting. Thanks for writing it! I was a geology major in undergrad, and I think at least half of us were going into that field due largely to Jurassic Park. I guess we all watched it at an impressionable young age.
Great post! And Jurassic Park is one of my faves (just the first one though ..)
Yay, science! Another thing that always bugged (heh) me about Jurassic Park was how they had so many species of dinosaurs there. Like, seriously? Even it the DNA extraction/cloning process was possible in way they described, how would they find DNA samples from so many different of dinosaurs?
*types of dinosaurs
ME TOO! When I was doing the research for this article I was thinking – Oh, not only are you cloning A DINOSAUR, you’re cloning ALL TEH DINOS!
AND… they seem to have enough variety to make unique individuals among the specific species. Like the Clever Girl velociraptor. They were lucky enough to not just get 1 mostly intact sample of raptor DNA that they could clone over and over (basically making several clones of the same individual), but they had several different samples so they could make a whole pack of unique individuals? Shenanigans, I say!
Well, thanks a lot for wrecking my profound belief that I will see both flying cars and the Age of Dinosaurs Part Deux in my lifetime. ;)
Maybe flying cars? I also read that mammoths are more of a possibility given how much more genetic material was around and the genetic similarity between mammoths and elephants.
Also, I read some discussion about bringing back animals that were more recently extinct, say in the last hundred years or so. SO THERE IS THAT!
What a helpful post! You break science down so well :)
Thanks!