On October 3, 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine will be awarded. Swedish biologist and evolutionary genetics expert Swanter Parbo , who won the award for his contribution to "discovery of the extinct human genome and human evolution ". His research results have created a new discipline, "Paleogenomics", which explains why humans are unique. Under his influence, Chinese scientific researchers also began to study ancient DNA, exploring the evolutionary process of human beings. In the future, we may be able to find a "Chinese".
What is the "paleogenomics" he founded for?
Study where DNA comes from and where to go
Human beings have always been fascinated by their origins. Where do we come from and what do we have to do with the previous creatures on Earth? What makes us - Homo sapiens - different from other ancient humans? Through his pioneering research, Svanter Parbo completed a seemingly impossible thing: sequencing the genome of an extinct human relative Neanderthal . Public information shows that Parbo was the first person to measure the sequence of ancient human DNA that had become extinct 30,000 years ago. This pioneering research gave birth to a new discipline - paleogenomics. By revealing the genetic differences between today’s humans and extinct humans, his discovery laid the foundation for humans to explore their own uniqueness.
What is paleogenomics? This goes back to a concept, paleoanthropology. In Zhihu "2022 Nobel Prize Tour", Zhihu answerer Guo Haotian explained that paleoanthropology has a long English name, Paleoanthropology, which is very philosophical. It is a discipline that studies where people come from and where they go. With the word "gene", the research direction is more detailed, which is to study where our DNA comes from and where we go.
Paleogenomics uses molecular biology evidence to speculate on the evolution, history, and major changes of human beings in the past. By extracting the DNA of ancient human fossil samples, then reconstructing their genomic information and analyzing some problems from it.
Director of the Institute of Anthropology of Xiamen University Wang Chuanchao in "History of Flower Origin and Flow in Ancient DNA Empirical", since Pabo began his ancient DNA research in the 1980s, he has been working hard to explore ancient DNA experimental technology and establish ancient DNA research standards. With the continuous emergence of amplification and sequencing technologies such as molecular cloning, PCR, second-generation sequencing technology, primer extension capture and liquid hybrid capture, ancient DNA research has gradually become a field with a wide range of uses and great development prospects.
What does the "Neanderthals" he studied have to do with us?
has a common ancestor, modern humans have their genes
Zhihu answerer Guo Haotian said that the most important results of Svanter Parbo's research are as follows: In 1997, the Neanderthal mitochondrial genome were first sequenced. In 2002, the FOXP2 gene was discovered. This was once considered the most important gene that "why people are human" and that gives us language function. In 2010, a Neanderthal genome sequencing sketch was completed.
The "Neanderthals" here may be the first time many people have heard of it. Research evidence shows that the modern humans on anatomy, Homo sapiens, first appeared in Africa about 300,000 years ago, while our closest "relatives" Neanderthals developed outside Africa and lived in Europe and West Asia about 400,000 to 30,000 years ago, and then became extinct. About 70,000 years ago, the Homo sapiens migrated from Africa to , Middle East, and migrated to other parts of the world from there. So Homo sapiens and Neanderthals have coexisted for tens of thousands of years in most of the Eurasian continent , but how much do we know about our relationship with the extinct Neanderthals?
As a well-known paleogeneticist, Svanter Parbo conducted extensive research on the genome of Neanderthals and released the first Neanderthal genome sequence in 2010.Comparative analysis shows that the recent common ancestors of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens lived about 800,000 years ago. Comparative analysis shows that the DNA of modern humans in Europe or Asia is more similar to that of Neanderthals than modern humans living in Africa. This means that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens hybridize to each other during thousands of years of coexistence. About 1%-4% of the genome of modern humans with European or Asian descent comes from Neanderthals.
Why do we study ancient humans?
Explore the evolutionary process of human beings. In the future, you may be able to find the "Chinese"
Another shocking result of Pabo was the discovery of an ancient human that was unknown to people before: Denisovan . Parbo also discovered that after migrating from Africa about 70,000 years ago, gene transfers have occurred from these now-extinct ancient humans to Homo sapiens. This ancient flow of genes still has physiological significance for today's humans, for example, can affect how our immune system responds to infection.
A specific example is the EPAS1 gene of the Denisovans that exists in humans today, which gives individuals the advantage of survival at high altitudes and is common among people living in Tibet today; another example is the way Neanderthal genes influence the way we react immune to different types of infections.
Nobel Prize official said that Palbo’s discovery gave us a new understanding of the evolutionary history of human beings. It provides a unique resource that can be widely used by the scientific community to better understand human evolution and migration. Thanks to Svanter Parbo’s discovery, we can understand that the paleogene sequences from our extinct close relatives influence the physiological functions of today’s humans.
Svanter Parbo also has a famous disciple Fu Qiaomei , who is a researcher at Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2013, Fu Qiaomei received her PhD in Evolutionary Genetics from the Leipzig Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Max Planck, Germany, and Pabo was her supervisor. Zhihu answerer Li Lei introduced through Zhihu's "2022 Nobel Prize Tour" that our ancient human studies have always been either Neanderthals in Europe or Denisovans, who have made genetic contributions to the indigenous people of East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas and Australia. Now that Fu Qiaomei is leading the research on ancient DNA in China, she may be able to find a "Chinese".
(Source: Yangzi Evening News)
For more exciting information, please download the "Jimu News" client in the application market. Please do not reprint without authorization. You are welcome to provide news clues and you will be paid once adopted. 24-hour information reporting hotline 027-86777777.
