The genomic data suggest that Neandertals mixed with modern human ancestors some 120,000 years ago, leaving traces of Ne andertal DNA in contemporary humans, suggesting that gene flow from Neand Bertals into the ancestors of non-Africans occurred before the divergence of Eurasian groups from each other.
The polymerase chain reaction is used to amplify homologous segments of mtDNA from more than 100 animal species, including mammals, birds, amphibians, fishes, and some invertebrates, and the unexpectedly wide taxonomic utility of these primers offers opportunities for phylogenetic and population research.
Results show that promoter sequence and gene function are major predictors of promoter methylation states and that inactive unmethylated CpG island promoters show elevated levels of dimethylation of Lys4 of histone H3, suggesting that this chromatin mark may protect DNA from methylation.
The global mtDNA diversity in humans is described based on analyses of the complete mtDNA sequence of 53 humans of diverse origins, providing a concurrent view on human evolution with respect to the age of modern humans.
A tooth found in Denisova Cave carries a mitochondrial genome highly similar to that of the finger bone, further indicating that Denisovans have an evolutionary history distinct from Neanderthals and modern humans.
The genomic sequence provides evidence for very low rates of heterozygosity in the Denisova, probably not because of recent inbreeding, but instead because of a small population size, and illuminates the relationships between humans and archaics, including Neandertals, and establishes a catalog of genetic changes within the human lineage.
It is shown that the rate of gene expression evolution varies among organs, lineages and chromosomes, owing to differences in selective pressures: transcriptome change was slow in nervous tissues and rapid in testes, slower in rodents than in apes and monotremes, and rapid for the X chromosome right after its formation.
It is demonstrated that indigenous Australians, New Guineans and Andamanese do not derive substantial ancestry from an early dispersal of modern humans; instead, their modern human ancestry is consistent with coming from the same source as that of other non-Africans.
Kay Prüfer, Fernando Racimo, Nick Patterson, Flora Jay, Sriram Sankararaman, Susanna Sawyer, Anja Heinze, Gabriel Renaud, Peter H. Sudmant, Cesare de Filippo, Heng Li, Swapan Mallick, Michael…