Patterns of coding variation in the complete exomes of three Neandertals

Sergi Castellano*, Genís Parra, Federico A. Sánchez-Quinto, Fernando Racimo, Martin Kuhlwilm, Martin Kircher, Susanna Sawyer, Qiaomei Fu, Anja Heinze, Birgit Nickel, Jesse Dabney, Michael Siebauer, Louise White, Hernán A. Burbano, Gabriel Renaud, Udo Stenzel, Carles Lalueza-Fox, Marco De La Rasilla, Antonio Rosas, Pavao RudanDejana Brajkoviæ, Željko Kucan, Ivan Gušic, Michael V. Shunkov, Anatoli P. Derevianko, Bence Viola, Matthias Meyer, Janet Kelso, Aida M. Andrés, Svante Pääbo

*Corresponding author for this work

Abstract

We present the DNA sequence of 17,367 protein-coding genes in two Neandertals from Spain and Croatia and analyze them together with the genome sequence recently determined from a Neandertal from southern Siberia. Comparisons with present-day humans from Africa, Europe, and Asia reveal that genetic diversity among Neandertals was remarkably low, and that they carried a higher proportion of amino acid-changing (nonsynonymous) alleles inferred to alter protein structure or function than present-day humans. Thus, Neandertals across Eurasia had a smaller long-term effective population than present-day humans. We also identify amino acid substitutions in Neandertals and present-day humans that may underlie phenotypic differences between the two groups. We find that genes involved in skeletal morphology have changed more in the lineage leading to Neandertals than in the ancestral lineage common to archaic and modern humans, whereas genes involved in behavior and pigmentation have changed more on the modern human lineage.

Original languageEnglish
JournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume111
Issue number18
Pages (from-to)6666-6671
Number of pages6
ISSN0027-8424
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 06.05.2014

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