Neanderthal ancestry drives evolution of lipid catabolism in contemporary Europeans

Ekaterina E. Khrameeva, Katarzyna Bozek, Liu He, Zheng Yan, Xi Jiang, Yuning Wei, Kun Tang, Mikhail S. Gelfand, Kay Prufer, Janet Kelso, Svante Paabo, Patrick Giavalisco (), Michael Lachmann () and Philipp Khaitovich ()
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Ekaterina E. Khrameeva: CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology
Katarzyna Bozek: CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology
Liu He: CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology
Zheng Yan: CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology
Xi Jiang: CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology
Yuning Wei: CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology
Kun Tang: CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology
Mikhail S. Gelfand: Research and Training Center on Bioinformatics, Institute for Information Transmission Problems, RAS
Kay Prufer: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Janet Kelso: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Svante Paabo: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Patrick Giavalisco: Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology
Michael Lachmann: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Philipp Khaitovich: CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology

Nature Communications, 2014, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Although Neanderthals are extinct, fragments of their genomes persist in contemporary humans. Here we show that while the genome-wide frequency of Neanderthal-like sites is approximately constant across all contemporary out-of-Africa populations, genes involved in lipid catabolism contain more than threefold excess of such sites in contemporary humans of European descent. Evolutionally, these genes show significant association with signatures of recent positive selection in the contemporary European, but not Asian or African populations. Functionally, the excess of Neanderthal-like sites in lipid catabolism genes can be linked with a greater divergence of lipid concentrations and enzyme expression levels within this pathway, seen in contemporary Europeans, but not in the other populations. We conclude that sequence variants that evolved in Neanderthals may have given a selective advantage to anatomically modern humans that settled in the same geographical areas.

Date: 2014
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms4584

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