RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 An ancient coronavirus-like epidemic drove adaptation in East Asians from 25,000 to 5,000 years ago
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.11.16.385401
DO 10.1101/2020.11.16.385401
A1 Souilmi, Yassine
A1 Lauterbur, M. Elise
A1 Tobler, Ray
A1 Huber, Christian D.
A1 Johar, Angad S.
A1 Enard, David
YR 2020
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/11/16/2020.11.16.385401.abstract
AB The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has emphasized the vulnerability of human populations to novel viral pressures, despite the vast array of epidemiological and biomedical tools now available. Notably, modern human genomes contain evolutionary information tracing back tens of thousands of years, which may help identify the viruses that have impacted our ancestors – pointing to which viruses have future pandemic potential. Here, we apply evolutionary analyses to human genomic datasets to recover selection events involving tens of human genes that interact with coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, that started 25,000 years ago. These adaptive events were limited to ancestral East Asian populations, the geographical origin of several modern coronavirus epidemics. An arms race with an ancient corona-like virus may thus have taken place in ancestral East Asian populations. By learning more about our ancient viral foes, our study highlights the promise of evolutionary information to combat the pandemics of the future.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.