Neanderthal DNA has subtle but significant impact on human traits
Since 2010 scientists have known that people of Eurasian origin have inherited anywhere from 1 to 4 percent of their DNA from Neanderthals. In a study published in Science, Tony Capra and Corinne Simonti used phenome-wide association studies to study the impact of Neanderthal alleles on human phenotypes in the eMERGE Network. Specific Neanderthal alleles significantly increased risk for nicotine addiction and hypercoagulability Collectively, Neanderthal alleles were associated with depression and skin lesions.
PheWAS Catalog of Neanderthal variants (all tested Neanderthal variants and their phenotype associations):
https://phewas.mc.vanderbilt.edu/neanderthal
Vanderbilt University press release:
http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2016/02/neanderthal-dna-has-subtle-but-signi…