RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 RNA viruses drove adaptive introgressions between Neanderthals and modern humans
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 120477
DO 10.1101/120477
A1 Enard, David
A1 Petrov, Dmitri A
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/03/24/120477.abstract
AB Neanderthals and modern humans came in contact with each other and interbred at least twice in the past 100,000 years. Such contact and interbreeding likely led both to the transmission of viruses novel to either species and to the exchange of adaptive alleles that provided resistance against the same viruses. Here, we show that viruses were responsible for dozens of adaptive introgressions between Neanderthals and modern humans. We identify RNA viruses—specifically lentiviruses and orthomyxoviruses—as likely drivers of introgressions from Neanderthals to Europeans. Our results imply that many introgressions between Neanderthals and modern humans were adaptive, and that host genetic variation can be used to understand ancient viral epidemics, potentially providing important insights regarding current and future epidemics.One Sentence Summary Once out of Africa, modern humans inherited from Neanderthals dozens of genes already adapted against viruses present in their new environment.