ArticleScientific reports2017
Malaria was a weak selective force in ancient Europeans.
Article in Scientific reports, 2017. 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.
- Malaria: 11-Year Experience With Imported Cases at a German University Hospital and Epidemiological Trends Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic.Journal of parasitology research · 2026Article
- Review
- Intra-individual variability in ancient plasmodium DNA recovery highlights need for enhanced sampling.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- A Non-Coding Fc Gamma Receptor Cis-Regulatory Variant within the 1q23 Gene Cluster Is Associated withInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- Ancient DNA suggests anaemia and low bone mineral density as the cause for porotic hyperostosis in ancient individuals.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Evolution ofLe infezioni in medicina · 2023Review
- Risk score prediction model based on single nucleotide polymorphism for predicting malaria: a machine learning approach.BMC bioinformatics · 2022Article
- An integrative skeletal and paleogenomic analysis of stature variation suggests relatively reduced health for early European farmers.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Leveraging Mann-Whitney U test on large-scale genetic variation data for analysing malaria genetic markers.Malaria journal · 2022Article
- Association of genetic variations in ACE2, TIRAP and factor X with outcomes in COVID-19.PloS one · 2022Article
- Three Signatures of Adaptive Polymorphism Exemplified by Malaria-Associated Genes.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Local ancestry prediction withPeerJ · 2021Article
- Malaria in Europe: A Historical Perspective.Frontiers in medicine · 2021Review
- How Genetics Might Explain the Unusual Link Between Malaria and COVID-19.Frontiers in medicine · 2021Article
- Ancestry-Specific Analyses Reveal Differential Demographic Histories and Opposite Selective Pressures in Modern South Asian Populations.Molecular biology and evolution · 2019Article
- Positive selection in Europeans and East-Asians at the ABCA12 gene.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Genome-wide data from the Bubi of Bioko Island clarifies the Atlantic fringe of the Bantu dispersal.BMC genomics · 2019Article
- Genetic signatures of gene flow and malaria-driven natural selection in sub-Saharan populations of the "endemic Burkitt Lymphoma belt".PLoS genetics · 2019Article
- Harnessing ancient genomes to study the history of human adaptation.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2017Review
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5 authors.
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Abstract
Malaria, caused by Plasmodium parasites, is thought to be one of the strongest selective forces that has shaped the genome of modern humans and was endemic in Europe until recent times. Due to its eradication around mid-twentieth century, the potential selective history of malaria in European populations is largely unknown. Here, we screen 224 ancient European genomes from the Upper Palaeolithic to the post-Roman period for 22 malaria-resistant alleles in twelve genes described in the literature. None of the most specific mutations for malaria resistance, like those at G6PD, HBB or Duffy blood group, have been detected among the available samples, while many other malaria-resistant alleles existed well before the advent of agriculture. We detected statistically significant differences between ancient and modern populations for the ATP2B4, FCGR2B and ABO genes and we found evidence of selection at IL-10 and ATP2B4 genes. However it is unclear whether malaria is the causative agent, because these genes are also involved in other immunological challenges. These results suggest that the selective force represented by malaria was relatively weak in Europe, a fact that could be associated to a recent historical introduction of the severe malaria pathogen.
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