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This is really interesting for another reason (which is kind of buried at the end of this article). A variant of the gene EPAS1, which occurs at low frequencie
by LarsDu88 2y ago
This is really interesting for another reason (which is kind of buried at the end of this article).
A variant of the gene EPAS1, which occurs at low frequencies in east asia, and relatively high frequencies on the Tibetan plateau seems to be identical to the variant found in Denisovans, implying that Homo Sapiens got it by interbreeding with Denisovans, and natural selection on the Tibetan Plateau maintained high frequencies of this gene in Tibetans specifically since it confers some resistance to high altitude hypoxia.
This is a somewhat rare example of both gene introgression across species (or subspecies?) and positive natural selection, and on top of that its happening in humans!
- suzzer99 2y agoThe article didn't mention Sherpas. But I assume they have the same gene?
- LarsDu88 2y agoI should note that its only something like 1/3rd of Tibetans who have this variant, and something like 1/200 Han Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotians, etc who have this variant (If you go back tens of thousands of years, basically everyone is related to everyone else, so the allele frequencies here are truly implied to be driven by natural selection rather than just simple descent). I vaguely recall that Nepalese have a fairly high frequency of these variant but I'm not sure how high. Would need to dig up the paper