Why 50% Indians will be happy to have some Neanderthal DNA. Hint: It has to do with Covid - ThePrint

According to researchers behind a study published in PNAS last week, nearly half the Indian population has inherited a 75,000-character-long DNA sequence from Neanderthals that is believed to reduce the risk of severe disease due to Covid-19. .

Conducted by researchers from Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) in Japan and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany, the study sought to examine a gene variant that was linked to a 22 per cent reduced risk of severe Covid-19 and ICU admissions in another study conducted in December.

In July last year, a study by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology found that a piece of the human genome that increases the risk of severe illness from Covid-19 was inherited from Neanderthals over 60,000 years ago.

Interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans — who are believed to trace their roots to Africa — is said to have led to the exposure of each species to novel viruses, and exchange of adaptive gene variants that provided resistance against these viruses.

For example, two gene variants that decrease the susceptibility to Helicobacter pylori — infectious bacteria that cause stomach inflammation and some types of stomach cancer — are believed to have been inherited from Neanderthals. .

The aforementioned July 2020 study said a gene variant in a region on chromosome 3, inherited from the Neanderthals, increased the risk of becoming critically ill upon infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. .