Meiotic Genes Are Enriched in Regions of Reduced Archaic Ancestry

B. Jégou (1, 2) , S. Sankararaman (3) , Antoine D. Rolland (1) , D. Reich (3) , F. Chalmel (1)

1 Irset - Institut de recherche en santé, environnement et travail
2 EHESP - École des Hautes Études en Santé Publique [EHESP]
3 Department of Genetics [Boston]

About 1–6% of the genetic ancestry of modern humans today originates from admixture with archaic humans. It has recently been shown that autosomal genomic regions with a reduced proportion of Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestries (NA and DA) are significantly enriched in genes that are more expressed in testis than in other tissues. To determine whether a cellular segregation pattern would exist, we combined maps of archaic introgression with a cross-analysis of three transcriptomic datasets deciphering the transcriptional landscape of human gonadal cell types. We reveal that the regions deficient in both NA and DA contain a significant enrichment of genes transcribed in meiotic germ cells. The interbreeding of anatomically modern humans with archaic humans may have introduced archaic-derived alleles that contributed to genetic incompatibilities affecting meiosis that were subsequently purged by natural selection.

Keywords: archaic hominin admixture; germ cells; testis; genetic incompatibilities; meiosis

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Genetics; Human genetics

B. Jégou, S. Sankararaman, Antoine D. Rolland, D. Reich, F. Chalmel. Meiotic Genes Are Enriched in Regions of Reduced Archaic Ancestry. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2017, 34 (8), pp.1974-1980. ⟨10.1093/molbev/msx141⟩. ⟨hal-01578587⟩