El rastro genético de los neandertales en los humanos modernos: introgresión de los alelos del antígeno leucocitario humano (HLA)

Zusammenfassung

Homo sapiens (AMHS) between non-Africans AMHS and archaic humans (Neanderthals and Denisovans) because Eurasian present-day humans have a small proportion of that archaic humans in the genome. In order to identify possible introgressions, we have analyzed the human leukocyte antigen (HLA), a vital component for the immune system and the reproduction system. We have compared the Neanderthal and present-day human sequences of the genes HLA-A, HLA-B and HLA-C. We have detected alleles in present-day humans compatible with the Neanderthal sequence, so we have deduced that these alleles could have been the result of an introgression. Those alleles show the highest frequency in Eurasian present-day humans, where the admixture with archaic humans supposedly took place. Thus, adaptive introgression of archaic alleles could have been significant to the adaptation of non-African local environments; in addition some of those alleles are related with different autoimmune diseases.