Journal article
Elevated genetic risk for multiple sclerosis emerged in steppe pastoralist populations
- Abstract:
- Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neuro-inflammatory and neurodegenerative disease that is most prevalent in Northern Europe. Although it is known that inherited risk for MS is located within or in close proximity to immune-related genes, it is unknown when, where and how this genetic risk originated. Here, by using a large ancient genome dataset from the Mesolithic period to the Bronze Age, along with new Medieval and post-Medieval genomes, we show that the genetic risk for MS rose among pastoralists from the Pontic steppe and was brought into Europe by the Yamnaya-related migration approximately 5,000 years ago. We further show that these MS-associated immunogenetic variants underwent positive selection both within the steppe population and later in Europe, probably driven by pathogenic challenges coinciding with changes in diet, lifestyle and population density. This study highlights the critical importance of the Neolithic period and Bronze Age as determinants of modern immune responses and their subsequent effect on the risk of developing MS in a changing environment.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 9.4MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41586-023-06618-z
Authors
- Publisher:
- Nature Research
- Journal:
- Nature More from this journal
- Volume:
- 625
- Issue:
- 7994
- Pages:
- 321-328
- Publication date:
- 2024-01-10
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-09-06
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1476-4687
- ISSN:
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0028-0836
- Pmid:
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38200296
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1601457
- Local pid:
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pubs:1601457
- Source identifiers:
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W4390705788
- Deposit date:
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2024-07-10
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Barrie et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2024
- Rights statement:
- Copyright © 2024, The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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