A Neanderthal skull, crushed by thousands of years of sediment and rockfall, is seen in the Shanidar cave in northern Iraq in an undated photo. Reuters
According to the study, 63% of people in Bangladesh have at least one copy of the genes.
The variant of the genes responsible for coronavirus disease was transmitted to humans by Neanderthals, it is very common in Bangladesh, according to a new study.
This piece of the genome, spanning six genes on chromosome 3, has had a perplexing journey through human history, the study found, UNB reports citing the New York Times.
The genome that the study found to be responsible for the infection is common in those living in Bangladesh.
The study was carried out by a pair of Swedish geneticists Svante Paabo and Hugo Zeberg. The Max Planck Institute in Germany, the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden are affiliated with the project.
Their findings were published online on Friday and have yet to be published in a scientific journal.
According to this, 63% of people in Bangladesh have at least one copy of the genes. Across South Asia, almost a third of people have inherited the segment.
Elsewhere, however, the segment is much less common. Only 8% of Europeans wear it, and only 4% have it in East Asia.
It is almost completely absent in Africa.
Paabo said the DNA segment may partly explain why people of Bangladeshi descent are dying at a high rate of Covid-19 in the UK.
However, scientists still don’t know why this particular segment increases the risk of severe coronavirus disease. But the new findings show how some clues to modern health come from ancient history.
About 60,000 years ago, some ancestors of modern humans expanded outside of Africa and spread across Europe, Asia, and Australia. These people encountered Neanderthals and mestizos. Once Neanderthal DNA entered our gene pool, it spread through the generations, long after the Neanderthals went extinct.
Most of the Neanderthal genes turned out to be harmful to modern humans. They may have been a burden on people’s health or made it difficult to have children. As a result, Neanderthal genes became rarer, and many disappeared from our gene pool.
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