Researchers Find Link to Nerve Disease in Ancient DNA
2024-01-19
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1Genetic researchers at the University of Cambridge in Britain say ancient DNA shows why northern Europeans have a higher risk of getting a nerve disease than other Europeans.
2The disease is called multiple sclerosis or MS.
3The researchers said the risk lies in genes from horse-riding cattle herders who entered northern Europe about 5,000 years ago.
4The findings come from a huge project to compare modern DNA with ancient genetic material taken from human remains including teeth and bones.
5A study released last year said it identified the earliest evidence of horse riding in people called the Yamnaya.
6The scientists say they lived 4,500 to 5,000 years ago during the Bronze Age period of human history.
7The Yamnaya moved from the grasslands of what is now Ukraine and Russia into northwestern Europe.
8However, the researchers say those people carried gene versions that today are known to increase a person's risk of multiple sclerosis.
9The researchers added that they believe the same genes protected those herders from infections from their cattle and sheep.
10The research was published in Nature, a scientific publication.
11William Barrie is a genetic researcher at Cambridge.
12He helped write the study. He said everyone involved was surprised.
13"These variants were giving these people an advantage of some kind," he said.
14The finding was made possible by a gene bank with thousands of examples of early humans in Europe and western Asia.
15That project is led by Eske Willerslev of Cambridge and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
16While MS can strike any population it is most common among white descendants of northern Europeans.
17Scientists have been unable to explain why.
18The cause of the disease is not known.
19However, one theory is that infections could cause it in people who have certain genetic qualities.
20Scientists say they have found 230 genetic variants that might increase the risk of MS.
21The researchers studied DNA from about 1,600 ancient Eurasians.
22They used the information to develop of map of population movements in northern Europe.
23They said farmers from the Middle East began pushing out hunter-gatherers about 5,000 years ago.
24Then the Yamnaya moved in.
25They traveled with horses and wagons and herded cattle and sheep.
26The research team compared the ancient DNA to the genetic information of 400,000 modern-day people stored in UK Biobank in Britain.
27They wanted to see if MS-linked genetic variations persisted in the north.
28That is the part of Europe where the Yamnaya moved, rather than southern Europe.
29In what is now Denmark, the Yamnaya replaced ancient farmers, making them the closest ancestors of modern Danes, Willerslev said.
30Rates of MS are especially high in the northern part of Europe known as Scandinavia.
31The findings raise additional questions and suggest a need for more research.
32One of the writers of the study, Astrid Iverson of Oxford University, questioned why a gene variant that seems to have strengthened immunity later plays a part in causing what is believed to be an autoimmune disease.
33Differences in how modern humans are exposed to animal germs might push the immune system out of balance, she said.
34I'm Mario Ritter, Jr.