Did you survive the covid? Maybe it's thanks to your Neanderthal genes

Neanderthal legacy could impact our health 0:55

(CNN) -

People who survive a COVID-19 attack with mild symptoms or even no symptoms can thank their Neanderthal ancestors, a new study suggests.

The researchers found a genetic mutation that reduces the risk of severe COVID-19 infection by about 22%.

It was found in all the samples they took of Neanderthal DNA and in about 30% of the samples from people of European and Asian origin.

The genetic region involved affects the body's immune response to RNA viruses such as coronavirus, as well as West Nile virus and hepatitis C virus, the researchers reported Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"This region encodes proteins that activate enzymes that are important during RNA virus infections," they wrote.

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It may be one of those mutations that has been passed down over the millennia because it helped people survive, reported Svante Paabo and Hugo Zeberg of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

"We show that a haplotype on chromosome 12, which is associated with an approximately 22% reduction in the relative risk of becoming seriously ill with COVID-19 when infected with SARS-CoV-2, is inherited from Neanderthals." they wrote.

"The relative risk of needing intensive care is reduced by approximately 22% per copy of the Neanderthal haplotype," they added.

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"This haplotype is present at substantial frequencies in all regions of the world outside of Africa," they added.

"It is present in populations of Eurasia and the Americas on carrier frequencies that often reach and exceed 50%."

The finding could help explain why black patients are much more likely to suffer from severe coronavirus illness.

Neanderthals, who became extinct about 40,000 years ago, lived alongside modern humans and sometimes interbred with modern humans in Europe and Asia, but not in Africa, and people of purely African descent do not carry Neanderthal DNA .

Studies estimate that about 2% of the DNA in people of European and Asian descent dates back to Neanderthals.

The team used samples taken from more than 2,200 living people with severe coronavirus cases or compatible controls.

They found a genetic region that affected susceptibility to serious diseases.

They then verified DNA taken from the skeletons of four ancient humans: a 70,000-year-old Neanderthal from Siberia, a 50,000-year-old Neanderthal from Croatia, a 120,000-year-old Neanderthal from Denisova Cave in Siberia, and an 80,000-year-old Neanderthal sample from the same site of a Denisovan, another subspecies of ancient human.

All four samples carried the same versions of that genetic sequence.

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Last year, Paabo and Zeberg identified a genetic mutation inherited from Neanderthals that increased the risk of serious disease.

As with most traits, susceptibility to disease and severe outcomes is affected by a variety of genetic differences.

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