A draft sequence of the Neandertal genome.

Science
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

Neandertals, the closest evolutionary relatives of present-day humans, lived in large parts of Europe and western Asia before disappearing 30,000 years ago. We present a draft sequence of the Neandertal genome composed of more than 4 billion nucleotides from three individuals. Comparisons of the Neandertal genome to the genomes of five present-day humans from different parts of the world identify a number of genomic regions that may have been affected by positive selection in ancestral modern humans, including genes involved in metabolism and in cognitive and skeletal development. We show that Neandertals shared more genetic variants with present-day humans in Eurasia than with present-day humans in sub-Saharan Africa, suggesting that gene flow from Neandertals into the ancestors of non-Africans occurred before the divergence of Eurasian groups from each other.

Year of Publication
2010
Journal
Science
Volume
328
Issue
5979
Pages
710-22
Date Published
2010 May 07
ISSN
1095-9203
URL
DOI
10.1126/science.1188021
PubMed ID
20448178
PubMed Central ID
PMC5100745
Links
Grant list
R01 GM040282 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
GM40282 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
Howard Hughes Medical Institute / United States
Intramural NIH HHS / United States