Denisovan introgression has shaped the immune system of present-day Papuans

Abstract

Modern humans have substantially admixed with multiple archaic hominins. Papuans, in particular, owe up to 5% of their genome to Denisovans, a sister group to Neanderthals, whose remains have only been identified in Siberia and Tibet. Unfortunately, the biological and evolutionary significance of these introgression events remain poorly understood. Here we investigate the function of archaic alleles of both Denisovan and Neanderthal ancestry characterised within a previously published set of 56 genomes from individuals of Papuan genetic ancestry living in the island of New Guinea. By comparing the distribution of archaic and modern human variants, we are able to assess the consequences of ar..