The Combined Landscape of Denisovan and Neanderthal Ancestry in Present-Day Humans.

Bibliographic Collection: 
APE
Publication Type: Journal Article
Authors: Sankararaman, Sriram; Mallick, Swapan; Patterson, Nick; Reich, David
Year of Publication: 2016
Journal: Curr Biol
Volume: 26
Issue: 9
Pagination: 1241-7
Date Published: 2016 May 9
Publication Language: eng
ISSN: 1879-0445
Abstract:

Some present-day humans derive up to ∼5% [1] of their ancestry from archaic Denisovans, an even larger proportion than the ∼2% from Neanderthals [2]. We developed methods that can disambiguate the locations of segments of Denisovan and Neanderthal ancestry in present-day humans and applied them to 257 high-coverage genomes from 120 diverse populations, among which were 20 individual Oceanians with high Denisovan ancestry [3]. In Oceanians, the average size of Denisovan fragments is larger than Neanderthal fragments, implying a more recent average date of Denisovan admixture in the history of these populations (p = 0.00004). We document more Denisovan ancestry in South Asia than is expected based on existing models of history, reflecting a previously undocumented mixture related to archaic humans (p = 0.0013). Denisovan ancestry, just like Neanderthal ancestry, has been deleterious on a modern human genetic background, as reflected by its depletion near genes. Finally, the reduction of both archaic ancestries is especially pronounced on chromosome X and near genes more highly expressed in testes than other tissues (p = 1.2 × 10(-7) to 3.2 × 10(-7) for Denisovan and 2.2 × 10(-3) to 2.9 × 10(-3) for Neanderthal ancestry even after controlling for differences in level of selective constraint across gene classes). This suggests that reduced male fertility may be a general feature of mixtures of human populations diverged by >500,000 years.

DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.03.037
Alternate Journal: Curr. Biol.
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