A genetic mutation that protects people from a common form of malaria spread like wildfire in sub-Saharan Africa about 42,000 years ago, according to a new study.
To learn more about how and when this mutation spread, Omar Cornejo, a population geneticist at Washington State University in Pullman, and colleagues analyzed full genome sequences from 1000 modern individuals from 21 population centers in Africa, Asia, and Europe. The researchers then employed a computer-based simulation that predicts how certain genetic variants spread throughout a population over time given the region’s known demographics and various selective pressures.
Based on rates of genetic change, the simulation suggests the most recent common ancestor of living Africans who possessed the DARC mutation lived about 42,000 years ago, the team reports this month in PLOS Genetics.