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DNA inherited from Neanderthals protects us against various diseases such as influenza and hepatitis
This is thanks to the miscegenation that took place around 50,000 years ago between Neanderthals and modern humans that we inherited genetic defenses against viral diseases.
These include infections such as hepatitis and influenza, according to a study.
Just before the modern human species was about to spread around the world, she came into contact with Neanderthals. As a result of this union, most Europeans and modern Asians or almost all humans outside the African continent harbor about two percent of Neanderthal DNA in its genome.
The Neanderthal genes have probably given us some protection against the viruses our ancestors encountered when they left Africa.
Neanderthals mysteriously disappeared about 40,000 years ago.
Curiously, fragments of Neanderthal DNA appear more often in modern human populations, prompting scientists to wonder whether their propagation was propelled by chance or whether these frequent genes confer a functional advantage.
Stanford scientists have now found convincing evidence of these. "Our research shows that a considerable number of frequent Neanderthal DNA extracts have been adapted for a very cool reason," said evolution biologist Dmitry Petrov, Michelle and Kevin Douglas, professor at the Faculty of Human Sciences. "The Neanderthal genes have probably afforded us some protection against the viruses our ancestors encountered when they left Africa."
At the first contact between the two species, Neanderthals had been living off Africa for hundreds of thousands of years, thus leaving their immune systems with enough time to develop defenses against infectious viruses in Europe and Europe. in Asia. In comparison, our newly immigrated ancestors would have been much more vulnerable. "It was much more logical for modern humans to borrow from Neanderthals the already adapted genetic defenses rather than wait for the development of their own adaptive mutations, which would have taken much longer," said David Enard, former Fellow. postdoctoral fellow at Petrov's laboratory. .
Persistent genes
Scientists have reached their conclusions after compiling a list of more than 4,500 genes in modern humans, known to interact one way or another with viruses. Enard then checked his list against a sequenced Neanderthal DNA database and identified 152 fragments of these genes from modern humans, also present in Neanderthals.
Scientists have shown that in modern humans, the 152 genes inherited from Neanderthals interact with HIV, influenza A and hepatitis C, all types of RNA viruses. Enard and Petrov concluded that these genes had helped our ancestors protect themselves from the old RNA viruses they had encountered while leaving Africa.
It is interesting to note that the Neanderthal genes they identified are present only in modern Europeans, suggesting that different viruses have influenced genetic exchanges between Neanderthals and the ancestors of today's Asians. That makes sense, said Enard, because it is thought that the miscegenation between Neanderthals and modern humans occurred several times and in many places in prehistory, and that different viruses were probably involved in each case.
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