Title:
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North African populations carry the signature of admixture with neandertals
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Author:
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Sánchez Quinto, Federico A, 1985-; Botigué, Laura R.; Civit, Sergi; Arenas, Conxita; Ávila Arcos, María C.; Bustamante, Carlos D.; Comas, David, 1969-; Lalueza Fox, Carles, 1965-
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Abstract:
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One of the main findings derived from the analysis of the Neandertal genome was the evidence for admixture between Neandertals and non-African modern humans. An alternative scenario is that the ancestral population of non-Africans was closer to Neandertals than to Africans because of ancient population substructure. Thus, the study of North African populations is crucial for testing both hypotheses. We analyzed a total of 780,000 SNPs in 125 individuals representing seven different North African locations and searched for their ancestral/derived state in comparison to different human populations and Neandertals. We found that North African populations have a significant excess of derived alleles shared with Neandertals, when compared to sub-Saharan Africans. This excess is similar to that found in non-African humans, a fact that can be interpreted as a sign of Neandertal admixture. Furthermore, the Neandertal's genetic signal is higher in populations with a local, pre-Neolithic North African ancestry. Therefore, the detected ancient admixture is not due to recent Near Eastern or European migrations. Sub-Saharan populations are the only ones not affected by the admixture event with Neandertals. |
Abstract:
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FS-Q, SC, CA and CL-F are supported by a grant from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain (BFU2009-06974) and CGL2010-14944/BOS. |
Subject(s):
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-Genètica de poblacions humanes -- Àfrica del Nord -Demografia -- Àfrica del Nord -- Aspectes genètics |
Rights:
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© 2012 Sánchez-Quinto et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
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Document type:
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Article Article - Published version |
Published by:
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
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