Ancient Mitogenomes Reveal the Maternal Genetic History of East Asian Gray Wolves (Canis lupus)

The gray wolf (Canis lupus) is the only wild ancestor of dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) and serves a crucial role in understanding the highly controversial issue of dog origins. Recently, ancient DNA studies on gray wolves from different regions of the Eurasian continent have achieved significant breakthroughs, providing important clues about the dog origins. As one of the potential origin areas for dogs, East Asia has seen some research on ancient dogs; however, reports related to gray wolves remain limited. In this study, we sequenced seven new mitogenomes of ancient gray wolves from Northern China, integrating them with 497 ancient and modern canid mitogenomes from published data. Our results reveal the following: (1) East Asian gray wolves have maintained high genetic diversity from ancient times to the present; (2) multiple haplogroup A gray wolves from Northern China support the hypothesis that Northeastern Eurasia is a core region for dog origins; (3) a deep gray wolf lineage in East Asia has been identified in this study; (4) different mitogenomes concentrated at the Jinchankou site indicate that admixture may have frequently occurred in the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. These findings enhance our understanding of the maternal genetic history of gray wolves in East Asia.