MICHAEL SMELTZER, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITYPeople of Eurasian origin are, genetically speaking, between 1 percent and 4 percent Neanderthal, and new research shows how this archaic DNA in their genomes may be impacting their health. The study, published today (February 11) in Science, utilized the electronic medical records and associated DNA data of more than 28,000 individuals to show that Neanderthal DNA had small but significant effects on the risks of developing—among other things—depression, skin lesions, and excessive blood clotting.
“They’ve looked at huge databases of medical records to see if there are traits that correlate with the presence of particular genes from Neanderthals and have found a number of them,” said anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin who was not involved in the study. “The take-away is that these genes that we have from these ancient people have effects on our phenotypes, and that’s pretty cool. They are not just shadows that are not doing anything, they are actually participating in our biology.”
Sequencing of Neanderthal genomes isolated from fragments of bones has revealed that modern humans contain remnants of Neanderthal DNA—a result of interbreeding between the two subspecies. But while certain loci in human genomes have been found to contain an ...
