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; Rodríguez Botigué, Laura; Civit Vives, Sergi; Arenas Solà, Concepción; Ávila-Arcos, María C.; Bustamante, Carlos D.; Comas, David; Lalueza Fox, Carles, 1965-
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Other authors:
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Universitat de Barcelona |
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. |
Subject(s):
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-ADN -Paleobiologia -Home de Neandertal -Àfrica del Nord -Paleobiologia evolutiva -DNA -Paleobiology -Neanderthals -Africa, North -Evolutionary paleobiology |
Rights:
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cc-by (c) Sánchez Quinto, F. et al., 2012
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es |
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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