ArticleHeredity2014
Searching for signatures of cold adaptations in modern and archaic humans: hints from the brown adipose tissue genes.
Article in Heredity, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 46 citations in OpenAlex.
- Genomics Insights Into High-Latitude Adaptation of Tibetan Macaques.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Brown fat thermogenesis and cold adaptation in humans.Journal of physiological anthropology · 2025Review
- Infrared thermography unveiled the variation of brown adipose tissue thermogenesis among East Asian adults.Physiological reports · 2025Article
- Exploring Genetic Markers for Cold-Heat Patterns: Integrating Traditional Medicine With Modern Genomic Research.Genetics research · 2025Article
- Melocular Evolution on Cold Temperature Adaptation of Chinese Rhesus Macaques.Current genomics · 2025Article
- Association between thermogenic brown fat and genes under positive natural selection in circumpolar populations.Journal of physiological anthropology · 2024Article
- Thermal Adaptations in Animals: Genes, Development, and Evolution.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2024Review
- Evidence of selection in the uncoupling protein 1 gene region suggests local adaptation to solar irradiance in savannah monkeys (Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Relationships between Uncoupling Protein GenesGenes · 2022Article
- Bone density and genomic analysis unfold cold adaptation mechanisms of ancient inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Article
- The Role of Nonshivering Thermogenesis Genes on Leptin Levels Regulation in Residents of the Coldest Region of Siberia.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
- Genomic adaptations to cereal-based diets contribute to mitigate metabolic risk in some human populations of East Asian ancestry.Evolutionary applications · 2021Article
- Investigating Mitonuclear Genetic Interactions Through Machine Learning: A Case Study on Cold Adaptation Genes in Human Populations From Different European Climate Regions.Frontiers in physiology · 2020Article
- Impact and Evolutionary Determinants of Neanderthal Introgression on Transcriptional and Post-Transcriptional Regulation.American journal of human genetics · 2019Article
- The Impact of Early Human Migration on Brown Adipose Tissue Evolution and Its Relevance to the Modern Obesity Pandemic.Journal of the Endocrine Society · 2019Review
- Searching for Signatures of Cold Climate Adaptation inFrontiers in genetics · 2019Article
- Obesity and climate adaptation.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2019Article
- A compendium and functional characterization of mammalian genes involved in adaptation to Arctic or Antarctic environments.BMC genetics · 2017Article
- Ancient pathogen-driven adaptation triggers increased susceptibility to non-celiac wheat sensitivity in present-day European populations.Genes & nutrition · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Adaptation to low temperatures has been reasonably developed in the human species during the colonization of the Eurasian landmass subsequent to Out of Africa migrations of anatomically modern humans. In addition to morphological and cultural changes, also metabolic ones are supposed to have favored human isolation from cold and body heat production and this can be hypothesized also for most Neandertal and at least for some Denisovan populations, which lived in geographical areas that strongly experienced the last glacial period. Modulation of non-shivering thermogenesis, for which adipocytes belonging to the brown adipose tissue are the most specialized cells, might have driven these metabolic adaptations. To perform an exploratory analysis aimed at looking into this hypothesis, variation at 28 genes involved in such functional pathway was investigated in modern populations from different climate zones, as well as in Neandertal and Denisovan genomes. Patterns of variation at the LEPR gene, strongly related to increased heat dissipation by mitochondria, appeared to have been shaped by positive selection in modern East Asians, but not in Europeans. Moreover, a single potentially cold-adapted LEPR allele, different from the supposed adaptive one identified in Homo sapiens, was found also in Neandertal and Denisovan genomes. These findings suggest that independent mechanisms for cold adaptations might have been developed in different non-African human groups, as well as that the evolution of possible enhanced thermal efficiency in Neandertals and in some Denisovan populations has plausibly entailed significant changes also in other functional pathways than in the examined one.
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Registered trials
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