Viking disease may be due to a genetic variant inherited from Neanderthals

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Researchers in the study, led by Hugo Zeberg at the Karolinska Institutet and Svante Pabo at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, investigated whether there was a link between the disease and genetic variations in Neanderthals.

Neanderthals were a group of ancient people who populated Europe and Asia before the arrival of modern humans. When modern humans and Neanderthals met about 60,000 years ago, they interbred and had children. As a result, between one and two percent of the genetic mass of people with roots outside of Africa are descended from Neanderthals.

– Since Viking disease is rarely seen in people of African descent, we asked ourselves if the genetic variants of Neanderthals could partially explain why people outside of Africa are mainly affected. Hugo Zeburg Assistant Lecturer in Department of Physiology and Pharmacology At the Karolinska Institute.

Three genetic risk factors from Neanderthals

The researchers examined genetic risk factors in affected individuals of European descent in three large clinical cohorts in the United States, England, and Finland. By comparing the genomes of nearly 8,000 sufferers and 600,000 healthy controls, the researchers identified 61 genetic risk factors for developing Viking disease. The researchers found that three of these were derived from Neanderthals, with the second and third being the most important risk factors.

The study highlights that encounters with Neanderthals may have caused certain diseases to affect certain groups in particular.

– This increased the risk of disease transmission due to encounters with Neanderthals, although we should not exaggerate the connection between Neanderthals and Vikings, says Hugo Zeberg.

The study was funded by the Swedish Research Council, the Brain Foundation, the Erik Philip-Sørensen Foundation, the Petrus and Augusta Hedlund Foundation, and the Emil and Vera Cornell Foundation.

“Major genetic risk factors for Dupuytren’s disease derived from Neanderthals”, Richard Agren, Snehal Patil, Xiang Cho, Fingen, Christopher Salholm, Svante Pabo, and Hugo Zeberg, M.Eye biology and evolutionOnline 14 June 2023, doi: 10.1093/molbev/msad130