Describing the genetic diversity of human populations is essential to improving our understanding of human diseases and their geographical distribution. However, the vast majority of genetic studies have been focused on populations of European ancestry, which represent only 16% of the global population. Scientists at the Institut Pasteur, Collège de France, and CNRS have looked at understudied human populations from the South Pacific, which are severely affected by a variety of diseases, including vector-borne infectious diseases such as Zika virus, dengue, and chikungunya, and metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes. Using genome sequencing of 320 individuals, the scientists have investigated how human populations have biologically adapted to the environments of the Pacific islands and how this has affected their current state of health. This study has also revealed hitherto unsuspected aspects of the history of human settlement in this region. This work is published in the April 14th, 2021 issue of Nature.
Click here for original story, Genetic admixture in the South Pacific: from Denisovans to the human immune response
Source: Phys.org