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Did you survive Covid? Maybe you should thank your ancestors for that

Politiko 2021-02-26 13:19:05

Did you survive Covid? Maybe you should thank your ancestors for that

Illustrative photo

A new study suggests that people who take Covid-19 with mild or no symptoms at all should thank their Neanderthal ancestors. The researchers discovered a genetic mutation, which reduces by about 22 percent the risk of severe Covid-19 infection.

The mutation was found in all samples they took from Neanderthal DNA and in about 30 percent of samples from people of European and Asian descent. It affects the body's immune response to RNA viruses such as the new coronavirus, as well as West Nile virus or hepatitis C virus, the researchers reported.

"This region encodes proteins that activate enzymes, which are important in infections with RNA viruses," they write. "This may be one of those mutations that has been passed down through the millennia, as it has helped humans survive," said Svante Pabo and Hugo Zeberg of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

"We show in this study that a haplotype on chromosome 12, which is associated with a 22 percent decrease in the relative risk of serious disease from Covid-19 when someone is infected with SARS-CoV-2, is inherited from Neanderthals." "The relative risk of needing intensive care is reduced by about 22 percent for people who have copies of the Neanderthal haplotype."

This mutation is present at significant frequencies in all regions of the world outside Africa. Thus, it is present in populations in Eurasia and America with frequencies that often reach and exceed the 50 percent level.

This finding may help explain why black patients are more likely to suffer from a severe form of coronavirus. Neanderthals, who became extinct about 40,000 years ago, lived side by side and sometimes mated with modern humans in Europe and Asia, but not in Africa.

For this reason, people of African descent do not carry Neanderthal DNA. Studies estimate that about 2 percent of DNA in humans of European and Asian descent can be traced back to Neanderthals. The team of researchers used samples taken from more than 2,200 living people with severe cases of coronavirus.

They found a genetic region that affected susceptibility to serious diseases. They then compared it to DNA taken from the skeletons of four ancient humans - a 70,000-year-old Neanderthal from Siberia, a 50,000-year-old Neanderthal from Croatia, a 120,000-year-old Neanderthal from Denisova Cave in Siberia, and an 80,000-year-old Neanderthal from Denisova Cave.

All four samples carried the same versions of that genetic sequence.

Last year, Pabo and Zeberg identified a genetic mutation inherited from Neanderthals, which increased the risk of serious disease with Covid-19. As with most traits, susceptibility to disease and serious outcomes is affected by a variety of genetic changes. / Bota.al