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Why do many people get away with coronavirus infection without much discomfort, while some get seriously ill or even die? There is still no one hundred percent answer to this question. But researchers continue to collect new knowledge in order to answer them in the best possible way.
In addition to age and previous diseases, certain genetic variants can also contribute to the fact that Covid 19 disease has a severe course. In previous studies, research groups had already classified a group of genes on chromosome three as relevant. For people who carry a certain genetic variant there, the coronavirus is a greater danger than for others.
A study published in the journal “Nature” now shows that this genetic variant originates from Neanderthals. According to the study, the risk of ending up in hospital for Covid-19 is 1.6 times higher for carriers of this genetic variant than for people without this genetic variant.
Hugo Zeberg and Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig found that the DNA sequence is very similar to that of a Neanderthal who lived about 50,000 years ago in what is now Croatia. Pääbo and his team in Leipzig deciphered the Neanderthal genome years ago.
“It turned out that modern humans inherited this genetic variant from Neanderthals when they intermixed with each other about 60,000 years ago,” says Zeberg, according to a statement from the institute.
Different diffusion
According to the study, the genetic variant differs from region to region. It is particularly common in people from South Asia, where around half the population has it in their genome, and in Bangladesh as much as 63 percent. In Europe, around one in six people (around 16 percent) inherited it; however, in Africa and East Asia, the variant hardly occurs.
The fact that the genetic variant is widespread in South Asia but not East Asia is unusual and, according to the researchers, suggests that it was promoted in the past by certain events in one place or suppressed in another; perhaps even previous coronaviruses ensured that this genetic variant was less popular in East Asia?
So far, there is no explanation why people with the genetic variant are at increased risk of severe Covid 19 cycles. “It is scary that Neanderthal genetic inheritance is having such a tragic impact during the current pandemic,” he said Pääbo. “Why this is so must now be investigated as quickly as possible.”
