Inability of ‘whole genome amplification’ to improve success rates for the biomolecular detection of tuberculosis in archaeological samples

We assessed the ability of whole genome amplification (WGA) to improve the efficiency of downstream polymerase chain reactions (PCRs) directed at ancient DNA (aDNA) of members of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC). Using extracts from a variety of bones and a tooth from human skeletons with or without lesions indicative of tuberculosis, from multiple time periods, we obtained inconsistent results. We conclude that WGA does not provide any advantage in studies of MTBC aDNA. The sporadic nature of our results are probably due to the fact that WGA is itself a PCR-based procedure which, although designed to deal with fragmented DNA, might be inefficient with the low concentration of templates in an aDNA extract. As such, WGA is subject to similar, if not the same, restrictions as PCR when applied to aDNA.