Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: Testing for archaic hominid introgression in Eritrean and Yemeni modern human genomes

博士论文改进：厄立特里亚和也门现代人类基因组中古代原始人基因渗入的测试

• 批准号: 1258965
• 负责人: Connie Mulligan
• 金额: $ 2.61万
• 依托单位: University of Florida
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-02-01 至 2017-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1258965&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Testing; archaic

There is strong consensus among scientists that modern humans evolved in Africa and then dispersed throughout Europe and Asia around 60 thousand years ago. Until recently, this process was thought to have occurred without any genetic input from Neanderthals or other archaic humans. In contrast, recent research in anthropological genetics has suggested there were minor levels of genetic interbreeding with Neanderthals and the newly described "Denisovans" from Denisova cave in Siberia. These arguments are based on comparisons of the draft Neanderthal genome to a number of human whole genomes sequences; however, none of the whole human genomes came from the Horn of Africa or southern Arabia, which are regions critical to studies of the first human dispersals out of Africa. It also has been questioned whether the evidence for Neanderthal interbreeding could instead be an artifact of the ancestral human population not randomly breeding (i.e., reflective of genetic structure in the ancient African population). Using whole genome sequences from Eritrea and Yemen, doctoral student Deven Vyas (University of Florida), under the guidance of Dr. Connie Mulligan, will test the contrasting hypotheses of genetic interbreeding with archaic humans versus ancient population structure in Africa. The latest next-generation sequencing technologies will be utilized to generate whole human genome sequences, and newly developed analytical methods will statistically test support for the two competing hypotheses. The data have significant implications for our understanding of the evolutionary history of humans and our knowledge of the populations and processes that contributed to the modern human gene pool. These novel genetic data from Eritrean and Yemeni individuals will be publicly available to researchers all over the world, facilitating future research. In addition, undergraduate students interested in scientific research will be assisting in this project, continuing the strong tradition of mentoring and training undergraduates to conduct scientific research in the Department of Anthropology's Human Genetics Laboratory at the University of Florida, directed by Dr. Mulligan.

科学家之间有着强烈的共识，现代人类在非洲发展，然后在大约6万年前散布在整个欧洲和亚洲。直到最近，人们认为这一过程已经发生，没有尼安德特人或其他古老人类的任何遗传投入。相比之下，人类学遗传学的最新研究表明，与尼安德特人的遗传杂交相结合，西伯利亚Denisova Cave的新描述的“ Denisovans”。这些论点基于尼安德特人基因组草案与许多人类全基因组序列的比较。但是，整个人类基因组都没有来自非洲之角或阿拉伯南部，这是对非洲第一个人类分散的研究至关重要的地区。还质疑尼安德特人杂交的证据是否可能是祖先人口而不是随机繁殖（即反映古代非洲人口中遗传结构）的伪像。 在康妮·穆里根（Connie Mulligan）博士的指导下，使用厄立特里亚和也门的整个基因组序列，博士生deven vyas（佛罗里达大学），将检验与非洲古代人与古代人群结构的遗传杂交相反的假设。最新的下一代测序技术将用于生成整个人类基因组序列，新开发的分析方法将在统计上测试对这两个竞争假设的支持。数据对我们对人类进化史以及对有助于现代人类基因库的人群和过程的了解具有重要意义。这些来自厄立特里亚和也门个人的新遗传数据将向世界各地的研究人员公开使用，从而促进未来的研究。此外，对科学研究感兴趣的本科生将有助于该项目，继续指导和培训本科生的牢固传统，在人类学系的佛罗里达大学人类遗传学实验室进行科学研究，由穆里根博士指导。