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According to one study, Neanderthal genes have probably conferred on modern humans protection from viruses that our ancestors encountered when they left Africa.
The research, published in the journal Cell, shows that the genetic defenses that Neanderthals have passed on to us were against RNA viruses, which encode their genes with RNA, a molecule chemically similar to DNA.
Neanderthals mysteriously disappeared about 40,000 years ago, but before they disappeared, they crossed paths with another human species that was just beginning to spread around the world, researchers at Stanford University said. United States.
As a result of these past discussions, many Europeans and modern Asians today host about two percent of Neanderthal DNA in their genome, they said.
"Our research shows that a large number of frequent Neanderthal DNA extracts have been adapted for a very good reason," said Dmitry Petrov, an evolution biologist at the Faculty of Medicine. Stanford Humanities.
"The Neanderthal genes have probably afforded us some protection against the viruses our ancestors encountered when they left Africa," Petrov said.
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, researchers said.
"It was much more logical for modern men to borrow genetic defenses already adapted to Neanderthals rather than wait for the development of their own adaptive mutations, which would have taken much longer," David said. Enard, a former postdoctoral fellow at Petrov's laboratory. .
The results are consistent with a model of "gene exchange between two species" "poison", said researchers.
In this scenario, Neanderthals bequeathed to modern humans not only infectious viruses, but also genetic tools to fight against invaders, they said.
"Modern humans and Neanderthals are so closely related that it was not really a genetic barrier to prevent these viruses," said Enard, who is now an assistant professor at the University of California. University of Arizona in the United States.
"But this proximity also meant that Neanderthals could send us their protection against these viruses," said Enard.
Scientists have compiled a list of more than 4,500 genes in modern humans that are known to interact with viruses.
They checked the list against a sequenced Neanderthal DNA database and identified 152 fragments of these modern human genes also present in the 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.
The researchers concluded that these genes were helping our ancestors fight the old RNA viruses they had encountered while leaving Africa.
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, researchers said.
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.
(This story has not been changed by Business Standard staff and is generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)
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