意大利科学家近日表示，他们找到了病毒如何改变人类进化历程的证据。他们在139个基因中发现了400多种不同的变异，这些基因变异对人们是否容易感染病毒至关重要。该项研究成果发表在《公共科学图书馆—遗传学》杂志上。
意大利米兰“住院病人治疗和研究中心”的研究人员分析了来自全球不同地区的52个人种的基因组，这些地区均遭遇了人类在20万年的进化过程中出现过的病毒。
科学家早就知道，病毒影响了人类的基因组。研究已经证明，8%的基因组由所谓的内源性逆转录病毒组成。
科学家仔细研究了这52个人种的基因组，并将发现的感染与基因变异联系在一起，他们认为这是一种找到同病毒有关的基因的好办法。他们发现，感染多种不同病毒的人种的基因变异更多。研究人员表示，这139个基因在人类的进化过程中被挑选出来，其中某些基因会使得人类更容易或更不容易感染病毒。研究人员也发现，非洲某些温暖湿润的地区可为病毒提供很好的生存环境。
该研究工作目前尚处于“非常基础”的阶段，还需要进行重复测试。不过，研究人员表示，该发现将帮助科学家研发出更好的药物和疫苗，也有助于解释为什么有些人能够毫发无伤地度过流感季节而有些人却很容易感染病毒。(生物谷Bioon.com)
PNAS：新方法有望呈现人类进化过程
人类进化的难题
生物谷推荐原文出处：
PLoS Genetics doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1000849
Genome-Wide Identification of Susceptibility Alleles for Viral Infections through a Population Genetics Approach
Matteo Fumagalli1,2, Uberto Pozzoli1, Rachele Cagliani1, Giacomo P. Comi3, Nereo Bresolin1,3, Mario Clerici4,5#, Manuela Sironi1#*
1 Scientific Institute IRCCS E. Medea, Bioinformatic Lab, Bosisio Parini (LC), Italy, 2 Bioengineering Department, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy, 3 Dino Ferrari Centre, Department of Neurological Sciences, University of Milan, IRCCS Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Mangiagalli and Regina Elena Foundation, Milan, Italy, 4 Department of Biomedical sciences and Technologies LITA Segrate, University of Milan, Milan, Italy, 5 Don C. Gnocchi ONLUS Foundation IRCCS, Milan, Italy
Viruses have exerted a constant and potent selective pressure on human genes throughout evolution. We utilized the marks left by selection on allele frequency to identify viral infection-associated allelic variants. Virus diversity (the number of different viruses in a geographic region) was used to measure virus-driven selective pressure. Results showed an excess of variants correlated with virus diversity in genes involved in immune response and in the biosynthesis of glycan structures functioning as viral receptors; a significantly higher than expected number of variants was also seen in genes encoding proteins that directly interact with viral components. Genome-wide analyses identified 441 variants significantly associated with virus-diversity; these are more frequently located within gene regions than expected, and they map to 139 human genes. Analysis of functional relationships among genes subjected to virus-driven selective pressure identified a complex network enriched in viral products-interacting proteins. The novel approach to the study of infectious disease epidemiology presented herein may represent an alternative to classic genome-wide association studies and provides a large set of candidate susceptibility variants for viral infections.
