2022-10-04 10:36:01

The ancient genetics that has just won the Nobel P

The list of winners of the "2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine" was announced, and Svante Pbo, a Swedish scientist, won the award in recognition of his discovery of the genome of extinct human species and human evolution. This is also interpreted as the "extreme cold" of this Nobel Prize.

Professor Chen Peng, Department of Genetics, School of Basic Medicine, Jilin University, said, "Understanding the genome of ancient humans helps us understand the source of disease susceptibility of modern people. A specific example is that researchers have confirmed the new crown susceptibility of modern people from the genome information of Neanderthals, which may be derived from ancient humans."

The ancient genetics that has just won the Nobel Prize confirms that the susceptibility of the new crown may be derived from ancient humans

Neanderthals, written by Swant Pabo

Since ancient times, human beings have been interested in their origin.

Modern humans, Homo sapiens, first appeared in Africa about 300000 years ago, while our closest relatives, Neanderthals, developed outside Africa and lived in Europe and West Asia about 400000 to 30000 years ago. From the Mediterranean to Siberia, Neanderthals have left footprints, and they are very smart and have larger brains than modern people. In the past tens of thousands of years, Neanderthals and human ancestors have coexisted on the European continent for at least 14000 years. About 70000 years ago, Homo sapiens migrated from Africa to the Middle East and from there to other parts of the world.

After that, Neanderthals became extinct. Until now, people still don't know why Neanderthals became extinct, but modern humans survived.

How much do we know about our relationship with the extinct Neanderthals?

During his career, Pabo devoted himself to studying Neanderthal DNA and sequencing Neanderthal genes using modern genetic methods. According to the award statement of the Nobel Prize Committee, Pabo first published his discovery in 2010 after he pioneered the method of extracting, sequencing and analyzing ancient DNA from Neanderthal bones. Thanks to Pabo's work, scientists were able to compare the Neanderthal genome with today's human genetic records.

Pabo also found that after humans left Africa about 70000 years ago, genes were transferred from these extinct primitive humans to Homo sapiens. Today, this ancient gene flow is still related to human physiology, for example, it can affect our immune system's response to infection.

Through comparative analysis of Neanderthal DNA genome map and modern human genome map, 99.7% of DNA is the same. Even today, modern people still have traces of Neanderthal DNA - many Europeans and Asians have Neanderthal DNA content between 1% and 4%.

Thanks to the discovery of Swant Pabo, we can understand that ancient gene sequences from our extinct relatives have affected the physiological function of human beings today.

In this regard, Professor Chen Peng, Department of Genetics, School of Basic Medicine, Jilin University, said, "Understanding the ancient human genome helps us understand the source of modern people's disease susceptibility, such as type 2 diabetes."

Chen Peng told the health client of the People's Daily that "a specific example is that researchers found the susceptible haplotype of new coronal pneumonia from the genome information of Neanderthals, confirming the new coronal susceptibility of modern people, which may be derived from ancient humans, especially people from northern Europe."

"Pabo's groundbreaking research has produced a new scientific discipline: paleogenomics. His research provides a basis for exploring what makes us unique by revealing the genetic differences between all existing humans and extinct primitive humans." It is displayed on the official website of Nobel Prize.

Source Health Times client

Editor Wang Xin/Editor Li Feng/Issue Pu Mu