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Ancient DNA Sequences Reveal How Modern Humans Diverged from Neanderthals
Osteoblasts infected with a virus containing archaic DNA sequences, a reporter molecule, and GFP. Image courtesy Nadav Ahituv.
Much of the genetic difference between modern humans and our archaic ancestors – Neanderthals and Denisovans – is not in our genes themselves, which make up only 2 percent of the human genome, but in regions of DNA that regulate gene expression by turning genes on and off. A team at UC San Francisco, in collaboration with colleagues at Stanford University, has unearthed the regulatory DNA sequences of our archaic human ancestors in a discovery that sheds light on how we diverged from them 500,000 years ago.