Reconstructing the genetic history of late Neanderthals.

Although it has previously been shown that Neanderthals contributed DNA to modern humans, not much is known about the genetic diversity of Neanderthals or the relationship between late Neanderthal populations at the time at which their last interactions with early modern humans occurred and before they eventually disappeared. Our ability to retrieve DNA from a larger number of Neanderthal individuals has been limited by poor preservation of endogenous DNA and contamination of Neanderthal skeletal remains by large amounts of microbial and present-day human DNA. Here we use hypochlorite treatment of as little as 9 mg of bone or tooth powder to generate between 1- and 2.7-fold genomic coverage of five Neanderthals who lived around 39,000 to 47,000 years ago (that is, late Neanderthals), thereby doubling the number of Neanderthals for which genome sequences are available. Genetic similarity among late Neanderthals is well predicted by their geographical location, and comparison to the genome of an older Neanderthal from the Caucasus indicates that a population turnover is likely to have occurred, either in the Caucasus or throughout Europe, towards the end of Neanderthal history. We find that the bulk of Neanderthal gene flow into early modern humans originated from one or more source populations that diverged from the Neanderthals that were studied here at least 70,000 years ago, but after they split from a previously sequenced Neanderthal from Siberia around 150,000 years ago. Although four of the Neanderthals studied here post-date the putative arrival of early modern humans into Europe, we do not detect any recent gene flow from early modern humans in their ancestry.

A complete Neandertal mitochondrial genome sequence determined by high-throughput sequencing.

A complete mitochondrial (mt) genome sequence was reconstructed from a 38,000 year-old Neandertal individual with 8341 mtDNA sequences identified among 4.8 Gb of DNA generated from approximately 0.3 g of bone. Analysis of the assembled sequence unequivocally establishes that the Neandertal mtDNA falls outside the variation of extant human mtDNAs, and allows an estimate of the divergence date between the two mtDNA lineages of 660,000 +/- 140,000 years. Of the 13 proteins encoded in the mtDNA, subunit 2 of cytochrome c oxidase of the mitochondrial electron transport chain has experienced the largest number of amino acid substitutions in human ancestors since the separation from Neandertals. There is evidence that purifying selection in the Neandertal mtDNA was reduced compared with other primate lineages, suggesting that the effective population size of Neandertals was small.

Estimation of coalescence probabilities and population divergence times from SNP data.

We present a method called the G(A|B) method for estimating coalescence probabilities within population lineages from genome sequences when one individual is sampled from each population. Population divergence times can be estimated from these coalescence probabilities if additional assumptions about the history of population sizes are made. Our method is based on a method presented by Rasmussen et al. (2014) to test whether an archaic genome is from a population directly ancestral to a present-day population. The G(A|B) method does not require distinguishing ancestral from derived alleles or assumptions about demographic history before population divergence. We discuss the relationship of our method to two similar methods, one introduced by Green et al. (2010) and called the F(A|B) method and the other introduced by Schlebusch et al. (2017) and called the TT method. When our method is applied to individuals from three or more populations, it provides a test of whether the population history is treelike because coalescence probabilities are additive on a tree. We illustrate the use of our method by applying it to three high-coverage archaic genomes, two Neanderthals (Vindija and Altai) and a Denisovan.

Paleopopulation genetics.

Paleopopulation genetics is a new field that focuses on the population genetics of extinct groups and ancestral populations (i.e., populations ancestral to extant groups). With recent advances in DNA sequencing technologies, we now have unprecedented ability to directly assay genetic variation from fossils. This allows us to address issues, such as past population structure, changes in population size, and evolutionary relationships between taxa, at a much greater resolution than can traditional population genetics studies. In this review, we discuss recent developments in this emerging field as well as prospects for the future.

Genome sequence of a 45,000-year-old modern human from western Siberia.

We present the high-quality genome sequence of a ∼45,000-year-old modern human male from Siberia. This individual derives from a population that lived before-or simultaneously with-the separation of the populations in western and eastern Eurasia and carries a similar amount of Neanderthal ancestry as present-day Eurasians. However, the genomic segments of Neanderthal ancestry are substantially longer than those observed in present-day individuals, indicating that Neanderthal gene flow into the ancestors of this individual occurred 7,000-13,000 years before he lived. We estimate an autosomal mutation rate of 0.4 × 10(-9) to 0.6 × 10(-9) per site per year, a Y chromosomal mutation rate of 0.7 × 10(-9) to 0.9 × 10(-9) per site per year based on the additional substitutions that have occurred in present-day non-Africans compared to this genome, and a mitochondrial mutation rate of 1.8 × 10(-8) to 3.2 × 10(-8) per site per year based on the age of the bone.

The complete genome sequence of a Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains.

We present a high-quality genome sequence of a Neanderthal woman from Siberia. We show that her parents were related at the level of half-siblings and that mating among close relatives was common among her recent ancestors. We also sequenced the genome of a Neanderthal from the Caucasus to low coverage. An analysis of the relationships and population history of available archaic genomes and 25 present-day human genomes shows that several gene flow events occurred among Neanderthals, Denisovans and early modern humans, possibly including gene flow into Denisovans from an unknown archaic group. Thus, interbreeding, albeit of low magnitude, occurred among many hominin groups in the Late Pleistocene. In addition, the high-quality Neanderthal genome allows us to establish a definitive list of substitutions that became fixed in modern humans after their separation from the ancestors of Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Excess of genomic defects in a woolly mammoth on Wrangel island.

Woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) populated Siberia, Beringia, and North America during the Pleistocene and early Holocene. Recent breakthroughs in ancient DNA sequencing have allowed for complete genome sequencing for two specimens of woolly mammoths (Palkopoulou et al. 2015). One mammoth specimen is from a mainland population 45,000 years ago when mammoths were plentiful. The second, a 4300 yr old specimen, is derived from an isolated population on Wrangel island where mammoths subsisted with small effective population size more than 43-fold lower than previous populations. These extreme differences in effective population size offer a rare opportunity to test nearly neutral models of genome architecture evolution within a single species. Using these previously published mammoth sequences, we identify deletions, retrogenes, and non-functionalizing point mutations. In the Wrangel island mammoth, we identify a greater number of deletions, a larger proportion of deletions affecting gene sequences, a greater number of candidate retrogenes, and an increased number of premature stop codons. This accumulation of detrimental mutations is consistent with genomic meltdown in response to low effective population sizes in the dwindling mammoth population on Wrangel island. In addition, we observe high rates of loss of olfactory receptors and urinary proteins, either because these loci are non-essential or because they were favored by divergent selective pressures in island environments. Finally, at the locus of FOXQ1 we observe two independent loss-of-function mutations, which would confer a satin coat phenotype in this island woolly mammoth.

Genome-wide divergence among invasive populations of Aedes aegypti in California.

BACKGROUND: In the summer of 2013, Aedes aegypti Linnaeus was first detected in three cities in central California (Clovis, Madera and Menlo Park). It has now been detected in multiple locations in central and southern CA as far south as San Diego and Imperial Counties. A number of published reports suggest that CA populations have been established from multiple independent introductions. RESULTS: Here we report the first population genomics analyses of Ae. aegypti based on individual, field collected whole genome sequences. We analyzed 46 Ae. aegypti genomes to establish genetic relationships among populations from sites in California, Florida and South Africa. Based on 4.65 million high quality biallelic SNPs, we identified 3 major genetic clusters within California; one that includes all sample sites in the southern part of the state (South of Tehachapi mountain range) plus the town of Exeter in central California and two additional clusters in central California. CONCLUSIONS: A lack of concordance between mitochondrial and nuclear genealogies suggests that the three founding populations were polymorphic for two main mitochondrial haplotypes prior to being introduced to California. One of these has been lost in the Clovis populations, possibly by a founder effect. Genome-wide comparisons indicate extensive differentiation between genetic clusters. Our observations support recent introductions of Ae. aegypti into California from multiple, genetically diverged source populations. Our data reveal signs of hybridization among diverged populations within CA. Genetic markers identified in this study will be of great value in pursuing classical population genetic studies which require larger sample sizes.

FST between archaic and present-day samples.

The increasing abundance of DNA sequences obtained from fossils calls for new population genetics theory that takes account of both the temporal and spatial separation of samples. Here, we exploit the relationship between Wright's FST and average coalescence times to develop an analytic theory describing how FST depends on both the distance and time separating pairs of sampled genomes. We apply this theory to several simple models of population history. If there is a time series of samples, partial population replacement creates a discontinuity in pairwise FST values. The magnitude of the discontinuity depends on the extent of replacement. In stepping-stone models, pairwise FST values between archaic and present-day samples reflect both the spatial and temporal separation. At long distances, an isolation by distance pattern dominates. At short distances, the time separation dominates. Analytic predictions fit patterns generated by simulations. We illustrate our results with applications to archaic samples from European human populations. We compare present-day samples with a pair of archaic samples taken before and after a replacement event.

Ancient DNA and human history.

We review studies of genomic data obtained by sequencing hominin fossils with particular emphasis on the unique information that ancient DNA (aDNA) can provide about the demographic history of humans and our closest relatives. We concentrate on nuclear genomic sequences that have been published in the past few years. In many cases, particularly in the Arctic, the Americas, and Europe, aDNA has revealed historical demographic patterns in a way that could not be resolved by analyzing present-day genomes alone. Ancient DNA from archaic hominins has revealed a rich history of admixture between early modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans, and has allowed us to disentangle complex selective processes. Information from aDNA studies is nowhere near saturation, and we believe that future aDNA sequences will continue to change our understanding of hominin history.

Joint Estimation of Contamination, Error and Demography for Nuclear DNA from Ancient Humans.

When sequencing an ancient DNA sample from a hominin fossil, DNA from present-day humans involved in excavation and extraction will be sequenced along with the endogenous material. This type of contamination is problematic for downstream analyses as it will introduce a bias towards the population of the contaminating individual(s). Quantifying the extent of contamination is a crucial step as it allows researchers to account for possible biases that may arise in downstream genetic analyses. Here, we present an MCMC algorithm to co-estimate the contamination rate, sequencing error rate and demographic parameters-including drift times and admixture rates-for an ancient nuclear genome obtained from human remains, when the putative contaminating DNA comes from present-day humans. We assume we have a large panel representing the putative contaminant population (e.g. European, East Asian or African). The method is implemented in a C++ program called 'Demographic Inference with Contamination and Error' (DICE). We applied it to simulations and genome data from ancient Neanderthals and modern humans. With reasonable levels of genome sequence coverage (>3X), we find we can recover accurate estimates of all these parameters, even when the contamination rate is as high as 50%.

Correction: Joint Estimation of Contamination, Error and Demography for Nuclear DNA from Ancient Humans.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1005972.].

Tracking the origins of Yakutian horses and the genetic basis for their fast adaptation to subarctic environments.

Yakutia, Sakha Republic, in the Siberian Far East, represents one of the coldest places on Earth, with winter record temperatures dropping below -70 °C. Nevertheless, Yakutian horses survive all year round in the open air due to striking phenotypic adaptations, including compact body conformations, extremely hairy winter coats, and acute seasonal differences in metabolic activities. The evolutionary origins of Yakutian horses and the genetic basis of their adaptations remain, however, contentious. Here, we present the complete genomes of nine present-day Yakutian horses and two ancient specimens dating from the early 19th century and ∼5,200 y ago. By comparing these genomes with the genomes of two Late Pleistocene, 27 domesticated, and three wild Przewalski's horses, we find that contemporary Yakutian horses do not descend from the native horses that populated the region until the mid-Holocene, but were most likely introduced following the migration of the Yakut people a few centuries ago. Thus, they represent one of the fastest cases of adaptation to the extreme temperatures of the Arctic. We find cis-regulatory mutations to have contributed more than nonsynonymous changes to their adaptation, likely due to the comparatively limited standing variation within gene bodies at the time the population was founded. Genes involved in hair development, body size, and metabolic and hormone signaling pathways represent an essential part of the Yakutian horse adaptive genetic toolkit. Finally, we find evidence for convergent evolution with native human populations and woolly mammoths, suggesting that only a few evolutionary strategies are compatible with survival in extremely cold environments.

Determination of genetic relatedness from low-coverage human genome sequences using pedigree simulations.

We develop and evaluate methods for inferring relatedness among individuals from low-coverage DNA sequences of their genomes, with particular emphasis on sequences obtained from fossil remains. We suggest the major factors complicating the determination of relatedness among ancient individuals are sequencing depth, the number of overlapping sites, the sequencing error rate and the presence of contamination from present-day genetic sources. We develop a theoretical model that facilitates the exploration of these factors and their relative effects, via measurement of pairwise genetic distances, without calling genotypes, and determine the power to infer relatedness under various scenarios of varying sequencing depth, present-day contamination and sequencing error. The model is validated by a simulation study as well as the analysis of aligned sequences from present-day human genomes. We then apply the method to the recently published genome sequences of ancient Europeans, developing a statistical treatment to determine confidence in assigned relatedness that is, in some cases, more precise than previously reported. As the majority of ancient specimens are from animals, this method would be applicable to investigate kinship in nonhuman remains. The developed software grups (Genetic Relatedness Using Pedigree Simulations) is implemented in Python and freely available.

Isolation-by-distance-and-time in a stepping-stone model.

With the great advances in ancient DNA extraction, genetic data are now obtained from geographically separated individuals from both present and past. However, population genetics theory about the joint effect of space and time has not been thoroughly studied. Based on the classical stepping-stone model, we develop the theory of Isolation by distance and time. We derive the correlation of allele frequencies between demes in the case where ancient samples are present, and investigate the impact of edge effects with forward-in-time simulations. We also derive results about coalescent times in circular and toroidal models. As one of the most common ways to investigate population structure is principal components analysis (PCA), we evaluate the impact of our theory on PCA plots. Our results demonstrate that time between samples is an important factor. Ancient samples tend to be drawn to the center of a PCA plot.

Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberia.

Using DNA extracted from a finger bone found in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia, we have sequenced the genome of an archaic hominin to about 1.9-fold coverage. This individual is from a group that shares a common origin with Neanderthals. This population was not involved in the putative gene flow from Neanderthals into Eurasians; however, the data suggest that it contributed 4-6% of its genetic material to the genomes of present-day Melanesians. We designate this hominin population 'Denisovans' and suggest that it may have been widespread in Asia during the Late Pleistocene epoch. A tooth found in Denisova Cave carries a mitochondrial genome highly similar to that of the finger bone. This tooth shares no derived morphological features with Neanderthals or modern humans, further indicating that Denisovans have an evolutionary history distinct from Neanderthals and modern humans.

Genomic evidence for island population conversion resolves conflicting theories of polar bear evolution.

Despite extensive genetic analysis, the evolutionary relationship between polar bears (Ursus maritimus) and brown bears (U. arctos) remains unclear. The two most recent comprehensive reports indicate a recent divergence with little subsequent admixture or a much more ancient divergence followed by extensive admixture. At the center of this controversy are the Alaskan ABC Islands brown bears that show evidence of shared ancestry with polar bears. We present an analysis of genome-wide sequence data for seven polar bears, one ABC Islands brown bear, one mainland Alaskan brown bear, and a black bear (U. americanus), plus recently published datasets from other bears. Surprisingly, we find clear evidence for gene flow from polar bears into ABC Islands brown bears but no evidence of gene flow from brown bears into polar bears. Importantly, while polar bears contributed <1% of the autosomal genome of the ABC Islands brown bear, they contributed 6.5% of the X chromosome. The magnitude of sex-biased polar bear ancestry and the clear direction of gene flow suggest a model wherein the enigmatic ABC Island brown bears are the descendants of a polar bear population that was gradually converted into brown bears via male-dominated brown bear admixture. We present a model that reconciles heretofore conflicting genetic observations. We posit that the enigmatic ABC Islands brown bears derive from a population of polar bears likely stranded by the receding ice at the end of the last glacial period. Since then, male brown bear migration onto the island has gradually converted these bears into an admixed population whose phenotype and genotype are principally brown bear, except at mtDNA and X-linked loci. This process of genome erosion and conversion may be a common outcome when climate change or other forces cause a population to become isolated and then overrun by species with which it can hybridize.

A test for ancient selective sweeps and an application to candidate sites in modern humans.

We introduce a new method to detect ancient selective sweeps centered on a candidate site. We explored different patterns produced by sweeps around a fixed beneficial mutation, and found that a particularly informative statistic measures the consistency between majority haplotypes near the mutation and genotypic data from a closely related population. We incorporated this statistic into an approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) method that tests for sweeps at a candidate site. We applied this method to simulated data and show that it has some power to detect sweeps that occurred more than 10,000 generations in the past. We also applied it to 1,000 Genomes and Complete Genomics data combined with high-coverage Denisovan and Neanderthal genomes to test for sweeps in modern humans since the separation from the Neanderthal-Denisovan ancestor. We tested sites at which humans are fixed for the derived (i.e., nonchimpanzee allele) whereas the Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes are homozygous for the ancestral allele. We observe only weak differences in statistics indicative of selection between functional categories. When we compare patterns of scaled diversity or use our ABC approach, we fail to find a significant difference in signals of classic selective sweeps between regions surrounding nonsynonymous and synonymous changes, but we detect a slight enrichment for reduced scaled diversity around splice site changes. We also present a list of candidate sites that show high probability of having undergone a classic sweep in the modern human lineage since the split from Neanderthals and Denisovans.

A sequence-based approach demonstrates that balancing selection in classical human leukocyte antigen (HLA) loci is asymmetric.

Balancing selection has maintained human leukocyte antigen (HLA) allele diversity, but it is unclear whether this selection is symmetric (all heterozygotes are comparable and all homozygotes are comparable in terms of fitness) or asymmetric (distinct heterozygote genotypes display greater fitness than others). We tested the hypothesis that HLA is under asymmetric balancing selection in populations by estimating allelic branch lengths from genetic sequence data encoding peptide-binding domains. Significant deviations indicated changes in the ratio of terminal to internal branch lengths. Such deviations could arise even if no individual alleles present a strikingly altered branch length (e.g. if there is an overall distortion, with all or many terminal branches being longer than expected). DQ and DP loci were also analyzed as haplotypes. Using allele frequencies for 419 distinct populations in 10 geographical regions, we examined population differentiation in alleles within and between regions, and the relationship between allelic branch length and frequency. The strongest evidence for asymmetrical balancing selection was observed for HLA-DRB1, HLA-B and HLA-DPA1, with significant deviation (P ≤ 1.1 × 10(-4)) in about half of the populations. There were significant results at all loci except HLA-DQB1/DQA1. We observed moderate genetic variation within and between geographic regions, similar to the rest of the genome. Branch length was not correlated with allele frequency. In conclusion, sequence data suggest that balancing selection in HLA is asymmetric (some heterozygotes enjoy greater fitness than others). Because HLA polymorphism is crucial for pathogen resistance, this may manifest as a frequency-dependent selection with fluctuation in the fitness of specific heterozygotes over time.

A hidden Markov model for investigating recent positive selection through haplotype structure.

Recent positive selection can increase the frequency of an advantageous mutant rapidly enough that a relatively long ancestral haplotype will be remained intact around it. We present a hidden Markov model (HMM) to identify such haplotype structures. With HMM identified haplotype structures, a population genetic model for the extent of ancestral haplotypes is then adopted for parameter inference of the selection intensity and the allele age. Simulations show that this method can detect selection under a wide range of conditions and has higher power than the existing frequency spectrum-based method. In addition, it provides good estimate of the selection coefficients and allele ages for strong selection. The method analyzes large data sets in a reasonable amount of running time. This method is applied to HapMap III data for a genome scan, and identifies a list of candidate regions putatively under recent positive selection. It is also applied to several genes known to be under recent positive selection, including the LCT, KITLG and TYRP1 genes in Northern Europeans, and OCA2 in East Asians, to estimate their allele ages and selection coefficients.