It’s a genetic revolution that dates back to Bronze Age Europe: 4,500 years ago, the human immune system began to mutate to better resist the spread of infectious diseases, at the expense of protecting us against other types of disease.
A study published traces the evolution of genetic mutations over the past 10,000 years, that is, since the Neolithic era, when hunters abandoned the nomadic life, they lived to develop agriculture and cattle breeding, reports Al-Rai daily.
Scientists analyzed the ancient DNA of 2,300 European individuals found during various archaeological excavations, and stored it in a database. They combined these samples with 500 modern genomes and developed a method for identifying and dating genetic variations that occurred over time, in an approach based on Neanderthal gene sequencing, a discipline for which Swedish biologist Svante Pääbo won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Among the hundreds of thousands of mutations recovered, the researchers determined that some of them were “helpful in fighting infection.”
These mutations are found in 89 genes, as explained to AFP by Luis Quintana-Murcy, director of the study published in the journal Sales Genomics.
Also, scientists have discovered an increased frequency of these 89 genes, which have a role in our immune response against pathogens, added this professor at the Institut Pasteur and College de France.
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