{"id":364973,"date":"2025-08-22T15:45:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T15:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/364973\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T15:45:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T15:45:13","slug":"denisovan-mucus-gene-may-have-helped-humans-survive-in-the-americas-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/364973\/","title":{"rendered":"Denisovan Mucus Gene May Have Helped Humans Survive in The Americas : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our ancestors are known to have gotten frisky with other, now-extinct species of humans, leaving traces in our DNA to this day. A new analysis has found that a certain genetic variant inherited from the Denisovans<\/a> may have given modern humans (Homo sapiens<\/a>) an edge in populating the American continents.<\/p>\n

“Typically, genetic novelty is generated through a very slow process,” says<\/a> evolutionary biologist Emilia Huerta-S\u00e1nchez, from Brown University in the US. “But these interbreeding events were a sudden way to introduce a lot of new variation.”<\/p>\n

Related: We Just Got Even More Evidence of Humans Interbreeding With Mysterious Denisovans<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The MUC19 region of the human genome codes for a mucin<\/a> protein \u2013 which, as the name suggests, is involved in the formation of mucus, the gel-like substance<\/a> our cells secrete to build and lubricate our bodies.<\/p>\n

We all have MUC19 genes, but it turns out people with Indigenous American ancestry are more likely than other populations to have a particular variant of this gene that can be traced back to the ancient, now-extinct Denisovans.<\/p>\n

After close analysis of ancient and modern genes, Huerta-S\u00e1nchez and colleagues found this variant did not arrive in our DNA directly: it took a meandering path that allowed it to survive far beyond the human species from which it originated.<\/p>\n

“Our results point to a complex pattern of multiple introgression events, from Denisovans to Neanderthals<\/a> and Neanderthals to modern humans, which may have later played a distinct role in the evolutionary history of Indigenous American populations,” the authors write<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This explains how a gene associated with a species of ancient humans<\/a> that we know lived in Tibet<\/a> and Siberia<\/a> came to reach such a distant continent, even though it seems the Denisovans themselves never did.<\/p>\n

\"anThe proposed evolutionary history of MUC19. (Villanea et al., Science, 2025)<\/p>\n

The Denisovan<\/a> chunk of DNA appeared at the highest frequencies within the genomes of 23 ancient Indigenous American individuals, found at archaeological sites in Alaska, California, and Mexico. These remains pre-date the arrival of Europeans and Africans to the continent.<\/p>\n

Based on data collected as part of the 1,000 Genomes Project<\/a>, a worldwide survey of human genetic variation, the authors found that contemporary Latino Indigenous Americans also have this signature Denisovan gene at high frequencies.<\/p>\n

Using a number of statistical tests, the team also revealed that as Homo sapiens migrated into North America, they experienced a massive expansion of repeated sequences within the MUC19 region of their genomes.<\/p>\n

According to the authors<\/a>, this expansion “effectively doubles the functional domain of this mucin, indicating an adaptive role driven by environmental pressures particular to the Americas.”<\/p>\n

Related: Ancient Humans Had Sex With More Than Just Neanderthals, Scientists Find<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This repetition occurred in a region that determines the protein’s ability to bind to sugars, allowing it to form a stickier version of the mucin glycoprotein.<\/p>\n

Making their mucus stickier must have offered some benefit that improved the success of survival and reproduction in these new environments, the team says.<\/p>\n

It’s tricky to pin down exactly what that benefit may be, but the authors note that some other mucin genes, like MUC7, feature variants that have different microbe-binding properties, which are crucial for host-microbe symbiosis<\/a> like that which occurs in our guts, mouths, and nether-regions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the Denisovan-like genes allowed humans to cooperate with a beneficial North American microbe, or perhaps they helped to reject harmful ones.<\/p>\n

“Something about this gene was clearly useful for these populations \u2013 and maybe still is or will be in the future,” Huerta-S\u00e1nchez says<\/a>. “We hope that leads to additional study of what this gene is actually doing.”<\/p>\n

This research is published in Science<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Our ancestors are known to have gotten frisky with other, now-extinct species of humans, leaving traces in our…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3846],"tags":[267,120,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-364973","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-genetics","9":"tag-msft-content","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115073197060834956","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}