Neanderthal DNA has subtle but significant impact on human traits

[Judi Lynn]

Neanderthal DNA has subtle but significant impact on human traits

February 11, 2016

Since 2010 scientists have known that people of Eurasian origin have inherited anywhere from 1 to 4 percent of their DNA from Neanderthals.

The discovery spawned a number of hypotheses about the effects these genetic variants may have on the physical characteristics or behavior of modern humans, ranging from skin color to heightened allergies to fat metabolism... generating dozens of colorful headlines including "What your Neanderthal DNA is doing for you" and "Neanderthals are to blame for our allergies" and "Did Europeans Get Fat From Neanderthals?"

Now, the first study that directly compares Neanderthal DNA in the genomes of a significant population of adults of European ancestry with their clinical records confirms that this archaic genetic legacy has a subtle but significant impact on modern human biology.

"Our main finding is that Neanderthal DNA does influence clinical traits in modern humans: We discovered associations between Neanderthal DNA and a wide range of traits, including immunological, dermatological, neurological, psychiatric and reproductive diseases," said John Capra, senior author of the paper "The phenotypic legacy of admixture between modern humans and Neanderthals" published in the Feb. 12 issue of the journal Science. The evolutionary geneticist is an assistant professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt University.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-02-neanderthal-dna-subtle-significant-impact.html#jCp

[valerief]

1. I have more Neanderthal DNA than 92% of the folks at 23andme. I have 311 variants.

I'm less likely to sneeze after eating dark chocolate because of one variant, and with another, I'm a little bit taller than I would have been.

Unfortunately, I got my test after they were giving out the Neanderthal percentages.

The Neanderthal stuff was the only interesting result I got from the testing.