A new study, which analyzed more than 3,000 genomes, was able to track a genetic mutation that gives HIV resistance to a person who lived near the Black Sea around 7000 BC.
A study last week at Cell suggests that a genetic variant that helps protect people against infection by HIV originated in people who lived during the period Between the Stone Age and the Viking Era.
“The variant emerged in an individual who lived in an area near the Black Sea 6,700 and 9,000 years“, Said the investigation leader, Simon Rasmussenem .
Bioinformatics teacher at the University of Copenhagen also explained that the variant must have been useful for something else in the past, since HIV in humans has less than a century.
In the study, the researchers wanted to go to the origin of a genetic mutation known as CCR5 delta 32.
As it writes, CCR5 is a protein found predominantly in immune cells that many – but not all – HIV strands use to invade these cells and trigger the infection. However, in people with two copies of CCR5 Delta 32 mutation, protein is deactivated, essentially “blocking” the VIH virus.
Science has already managed to take advantage of this mutation to cure infected people.
Amazing discovery
In the new study, the research team identified the mutation in 2504 modern humans. Then they created a model to research 934 old genomes from various regions of Eurasia, from the beginning of the mesolithic period to the Viking era, approximately 8000 BC to 1000 DC
The team’s genetic research work revealed that the first person “carries” this mutation lived near the black sea around 7000 ACat the time when the first farmers arrived in Europe through Western Asia.
Researchers also found that the Mutation prevalence exploded between 8,000 and 2,000 years ago – suggesting that it was extremely useful when people left the Eurasian steppe.
The study’s findings contradict previous assumptions that the mutation came about more recently.
