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Rapid adaptation to malaria facilitated by admixture in the human population of Cabo Verde.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Hamid, I; Korunes, KL; Beleza, S; Goldberg, A
Published in: eLife
January 2021

Humans have undergone large migrations over the past hundreds to thousands of years, exposing ourselves to new environments and selective pressures. Yet, evidence of ongoing or recent selection in humans is difficult to detect. Many of these migrations also resulted in gene flow between previously separated populations. These recently admixed populations provide unique opportunities to study rapid evolution in humans. Developing methods based on distributions of local ancestry, we demonstrate that this sort of genetic exchange has facilitated detectable adaptation to a malaria parasite in the admixed population of Cabo Verde within the last ~20 generations. We estimate that the selection coefficient is approximately 0.08, one of the highest inferred in humans. Notably, we show that this strong selection at a single locus has likely affected patterns of ancestry genome-wide, potentially biasing demographic inference. Our study provides evidence of adaptation in a human population on historical timescales.

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Published In

eLife

DOI

EISSN

2050-084X

ISSN

2050-084X

Publication Date

January 2021

Volume

10

Start / End Page

e63177

Related Subject Headings

  • Selection, Genetic
  • Malaria
  • Humans
  • Gene Flow
  • Cabo Verde
  • Adaptation, Physiological
  • 42 Health sciences
  • 32 Biomedical and clinical sciences
  • 31 Biological sciences
  • 0601 Biochemistry and Cell Biology
 

Citation

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Hamid, I., Korunes, K. L., Beleza, S., & Goldberg, A. (2021). Rapid adaptation to malaria facilitated by admixture in the human population of Cabo Verde. ELife, 10, e63177. https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.63177
Hamid, Iman, Katharine L. Korunes, Sandra Beleza, and Amy Goldberg. “Rapid adaptation to malaria facilitated by admixture in the human population of Cabo Verde.ELife 10 (January 2021): e63177. https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.63177.
Hamid I, Korunes KL, Beleza S, Goldberg A. Rapid adaptation to malaria facilitated by admixture in the human population of Cabo Verde. eLife. 2021 Jan;10:e63177.
Hamid, Iman, et al. “Rapid adaptation to malaria facilitated by admixture in the human population of Cabo Verde.ELife, vol. 10, Jan. 2021, p. e63177. Epmc, doi:10.7554/elife.63177.
Hamid I, Korunes KL, Beleza S, Goldberg A. Rapid adaptation to malaria facilitated by admixture in the human population of Cabo Verde. eLife. 2021 Jan;10:e63177.

Published In

eLife

DOI

EISSN

2050-084X

ISSN

2050-084X

Publication Date

January 2021

Volume

10

Start / End Page

e63177

Related Subject Headings

  • Selection, Genetic
  • Malaria
  • Humans
  • Gene Flow
  • Cabo Verde
  • Adaptation, Physiological
  • 42 Health sciences
  • 32 Biomedical and clinical sciences
  • 31 Biological sciences
  • 0601 Biochemistry and Cell Biology