Reading The Genome: What The Analysis Found

The genome of NUE001 was sequenced at what researchers call 2x coverage — meaning that each position in the genome was, on average, read twice.

This is lower than the deep coverage (20x or more) used in clinical genomic sequencing, but it is adequate for the population genetic analyses that the study aimed to conduct.

More sequencing would not have changed the fundamental findings; the statistical power of the comparisons was sufficient to draw meaningful conclusions.

The first analytical step was to compare NUE001’s genome against a large panel of modern and ancient populations from around the world, using a technique called principal component analysis (PCA) that allows researchers to visualize the genetic relationships between many individuals simultaneously.