• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

We All Carry Neanderthal And Denisovan DNA – Here’s How That Affects Us

November 25, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Homo sapiens may be the last humans standing, but we weren’t always alone. For much of our history, we coexisted with other members of our genus, and our prehistoric ancestors didn’t waste the opportunity to hook up with their Neanderthal and Denisovan relatives.

Many millennia have passed since these inter-hominid affairs, yet we all still bear the consequences of our predecessors’ promiscuity. Thanks to recent developments in ancient DNA detection and genome sequencing, scientists are now beginning to understand how this primordial genetic mingling continues to shape our health, appearance, and physiology.

Advertisement

Reviewing all the existing data on archaic human introgression into the modern human genome, the authors of a new study explain that because Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa in waves, different populations of humans ended up mating with Neanderthals in different regions of Eurasia. As a result, those of us alive today display a complex patchwork of introgressed sequences inherited from this now extinct lineage.

Recent work has also revealed that Homo sapiens interbred with three separate Denisovan populations. As a consequence, all non-African individuals now derive around 2 percent of their genome from Neanderthals, while certain Indigenous groups in Oceania have an extra 2-5 percent Denisovan DNA.

Looking at how these archaic genes actually affect us, the study authors explain that our Neanderthal DNA may have increased the size of our noses while our Denisovan heritage is associated with the width of our lips. This conclusion builds on previous studies which indicated that the Denisovans probably had narrower mouths than the average modern human.

Advertisement

There’s also some evidence to suggest that Neanderthal genes may have altered our circadian rhythm, making us more likely to wake up early in the morning. However, the majority of the surviving genetic sequences picked up from our extinct relatives are related to immune system functioning.

According to the researchers, this is not all that surprising, since both Neanderthals and Denisovans would have been better adapted to cope with the types of pathogens present in Eurasia than the incoming Homo sapiens arriving from Africa. Mating with the locals would therefore have enabled our ancient ancestors to pick up certain advantageous genes that would have provided protection from infectious microbes and therefore been passed down through natural selection.

“However, immune-related variants inherited from archaic hominins that were beneficial to modern humans in these new environments may also contribute to disease susceptibility in contemporary individuals,” write the study authors. For instance, while one cluster of Neanderthal genes on chromosome 12 appears to confer protection against severe COVID symptoms, another on chromosome three may actually increase our susceptibility to the illness.

Meanwhile, an analysis of modern Japanese genomes has revealed an association between Denisovan DNA and health conditions such as type II diabetes and coronary artery disease.

Advertisement

Such discoveries have helped to unravel the genetic history of our species, yet many gaps remain. For instance, it’s still unclear how gene flow between different human species impacts the DNA of modern African populations, with some scholars believing that the genetic signature of an unknown “ghost” hominid may be present in these groups.

Nonetheless, the study authors state that “recent work has continued to provide new insights into the history of gene flow between modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans and has clearly demonstrated that admixture had important functional, phenotypic, and evolutionary consequences in modern humans.”

The study is published in the journal Current Opinion in Genetics & Development.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Cricket-Manchester test likely to be postponed after India COVID-19 case
  2. EU to attend U.S. trade meeting put in doubt by French anger
  3. Soccer-West Ham win again, Leicester and Napoli falter
  4. Lacking Company, A Dolphin In The Baltic Is Talking To Himself

Source Link: We All Carry Neanderthal And Denisovan DNA – Here’s How That Affects Us

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Ancient Human DNA Reveals Earliest Zoonotic Diseases Appeared 6,500 Years Ago
  • Boys Are Better At Math? That Could Be Because School Favors Them Over Girls
  • Looptail G: Most People Can’t Recognize A Letter You Have Seen Millions Of Times
  • 24-Million-Year-Old Protein Fragments Are Oldest Ever Recovered, A Robot Listened To Spoken Instructions And Performed Surgery, And Much More This Week
  • DNA From Greenland Sled Dogs – Maybe The World’s Oldest Breed – Reveals 1,000 Years Of Arctic History
  • Why Doesn’t Moonrise Shift By The Same Amount Each Night?
  • Moa De-Extinction, Fashionable Chimps, And Robot Surgery – No Human Required
  • “Human”: Powerful New Images Mark The Most Scientifically Accurate “Hyper-Real 3D Models Of Human Species Ever”
  • Did We Accidentally Leave Life On The Moon In 2019 – And Could We Revive It?
  • 1.8 Million Years Ago, Two Extinct Humans Had One Of The Gnarliest Deaths In History
  • “Powerful Image” Of One Of The World’s Rarest Tigers Exposes The Real Danger In Taman Negara
  • Evolution, Domestication, And A Lot Of Very Good Boys: How Wolves Became Dogs
  • Why Do Orcas Have White Spots Near Their Eyes?
  • Tomb Of First King Of Ancient Maya City Discovered In Belize
  • The Real Reason The Tip Of Your Tape Measure Wiggles Like That
  • The “Haunting” Last Message From NASA’s Opportunity Rover, Sent From Inside A Planet-Wide Storm
  • Adorable Video Proves Not All Gorillas Hate The Rain. It Might Even Win One A Mate
  • 5,000-Year-Old Rock Art May Show One Of Ancient Egypt’s First Rulers
  • Alzheimer’s-Linked Protein Levels “20 Times Higher” In Newborn Babies – What Does This Mean?
  • Americans Were Asked If They Thought Civil War Was Coming. The Results Were Unexpected
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version