Favorable gene variant in European women Neanderthal’s legacy: increased fertility in every third woman
European women who have a specific Neanderthal gene variant in their genome appear to give birth to more children. As a recent international study shows, one in three women in Europe has inherited the receptor for progesterone from Neanderthals – a gene variant that is associated with increased fertility, less bleeding at the start of pregnancy and fewer miscarriages.
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Leipzig – “The progesterone receptor is an example of how inexpensive genetic variants that have been transferred to modern humans through the mixing with Neanderthals can have an impact on people living today,” says Hugo Zeberg, researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig and at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, who carried out the current study together with Janet Kelso and Svante Pääbo.
Progesterone – important for menstruation and pregnancy
Progesterone is a hormone that plays an important role in the menstrual cycle and in pregnancy. Analyzes of biobank data from more than 450,000 people – including 244,000 women – show that almost every third woman in Europe has inherited the progesterone receptor from Neanderthals. 29 percent carry one copy of the Neanderthal receptor and three percent have two copies.
Women with the Neandertal gene give birth to more children
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“The proportion of women who inherited this gene is about ten times that of most other Neanderthal gene variants,” says Hugo Zeberg. “Our results indicate that the Neanderthal variant of the receptor has a beneficial effect on fertility,” says Hugo Zeberg.
The study shows that women who have the Neanderthal variant of the receptor usually have less bleeding at the start of pregnancy and fewer miscarriages. They also give birth to more children. Molecular analyzes have shown that these women produce more progesterone receptors in their cells, which can lead to increased sensitivity to progesterone and thus protection against early miscarriages and bleeding.
Original publication: Hugo Zeberg, Janet Kelso, Svante Pääbo: The Neandertal Progesterone Receptor; Molecular Biology and Evolution, 21 May 2020, https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaa119
* S. Jacob: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig
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