It is quite certain that the Neanderthals entered into an intimate relationship with the ancestors of modern man, and this, of course, has left its mark on our genome as well. Sometimes for good, sometimes not so much – now that the Covid-19 pandemic is raging in the world – one of the areas of research is why this infection is more severe than others. A group of researchers from Sweden and Germany cites a string of DNA inherited from Neanderthals as one of the possible reasons.
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In the edition In a study published by Nature Hugo Zeberg of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and his colleague Svante Pabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig discuss the possible role of a sequence of DNA inherited from Neanderthals in the course of Covid-19 infection.
During the study, the DNA of very seriously ill patients was compared with that of Neanderthals and others homo genus species – little known Denisovians or homo denisova (also homo sapiens DENISOVA) – DNA. Zeberg and Pao concluded that its Neanderthal genome contains exactly the same strand of DNA that is found in a large number of patients with severe Covid-19 disease.
“I’m almost late for the chair because this segment of DNA was exactly the same as in the Neanderthal genome,” Zeberg comments to The Guardian.
These “traces” of Neanderthal DNA, inherited about 50,000 years ago, are found in the genomes of about 16% of Europeans, but even in the genomes of 50% of people in southern Asia.
It is not yet clear whether and how these genes impair the course of Covid-19, but one of the genes studied by the researchers is known to be involved in the immune response, and another is linked to the mechanism by which viruses attach and infect cells in the human body. “We’re trying to determine exactly which gene is the main ‘player’, or there are several, but the honest answer right now is we don’t know which one is critical in the Covid-19 context,” Zeberg admits.
The data collected in the study show that this strand of DNA is highly inherited directly from the genomes of people in southern Asia, for example, it is found in the genomes of 63% of the Bangladeshi population.
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“These genes may have once helped protect the Neanderthal body from other infectious diseases that are no longer relevant, but now, in the face of the new coronavirus, these Neanderthal genes may have the opposite, tragic consequences,” said another study author, Paul. He admits that the genetic “inheritance” inherited from the Neanderthals may have contributed to the deaths of an additional 100,000 people from Covid-19.
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