Apparent Variation in Neanderthal Admixture among African Populations is Consistent with Gene Flow from Non-African Populations

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Genome Biol Evol
• Personal Author:
  Wang, Shuoguo ; Lachance, Joseph ; Tishkoff, Sarah A. ; Hey, Jody ; Xing, Jinchuan
• Description:
  Recent studies have found evidence of introgression from Neanderthals into modern humans outside of sub-Saharan Africa. Given the geographic range of Neanderthals, the findings have been interpreted as evidence of gene exchange between Neanderthals and modern humans descended from the Out-of-Africa (OOA) migration. Here, we examine an alternative interpretation in which the introgression occurred earlier within Africa, between ancestors or relatives of Neanderthals and a subset of African modern humans who were the ancestors of those involved in the OOA migration. Under the alternative model, if the population structure among present-day Africans predates the OOA migration, we might find some African populations show a signal of Neanderthal introgression whereas others do not. To test this alternative model, we compiled a whole-genome data set including 38 sub-Saharan Africans from eight populations and 25 non-African individuals from five populations. We assessed differences in the amount of Neanderthal-like single-nucleotide polymorphism alleles among these populations and observed up to 1.5% difference in the number of Neanderthal-like alleles among African populations. Further analyses suggest that these differences are likely due to recent non-African admixture in these populations. After accounting for recent non-African admixture, our results do not support the alternative model of older (e.g., >100 kya) admixture between modern humans and Neanderthal-like hominids within Africa.
• Subjects:
  Animals Evolution, Molecular Gene Flow Humans Neanderthals Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
• Source:
  Genome Biol Evol. 2013; 5(11):2075-2081.
• Pubmed ID:
  24162011
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC3845641
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  DP1 ES022577/DP/NCCDPHP CDC HHS/United States ; F32 HG006648/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/United States ; R00 HG005846/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/United States
• Genre:
  Letter
• Place as Subject:
  Africa South of the Sahara
• Volume:
  5
• Issue:
  11
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:8b622b24a807a44ab2f8ed0ef9bfca1688b409afb20b37ff5c1b61017213f8bc
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/22540/cdc_22540_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 463.22 KB ]