ArticleGenes2022
Mitochondrial Pseudogenes Suggest Repeated Inter-Species Hybridization among Direct Human Ancestors.
Article in Genes, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- Emergence and evolution of chimeric pseudogenes (φgenes) contribute to genetic and functional diversity of the human genome.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Diverse evolutionary trajectories of mitocoding DNA in mammalian and avian nuclear genomes.Genome research · 2025Article
- A Genome-Wide Analysis of Nuclear Mitochondrial DNA Sequences (NUMTs) in Chrysomelidae Species (Coleoptera).Insects · 2025Article
- Article
- Comparison of detection methods and genome quality when quantifying nuclear mitochondrial insertions in vertebrate genomes.Frontiers in genetics · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 7 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The hypothesis that the evolution of humans involves hybridization between diverged species has been actively debated in recent years. We present the following novel evidence in support of this hypothesis: the analysis of nuclear pseudogenes of mtDNA ("NUMTs"). NUMTs are considered "mtDNA fossils" as they preserve sequences of ancient mtDNA and thus carry unique information about ancestral populations. Our comparison of a NUMT sequence shared by humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas with their mtDNAs implies that, around the time of divergence between humans and chimpanzees, our evolutionary history involved the interbreeding of individuals whose mtDNA had diverged as much as ~4.5 Myr prior. This large divergence suggests a distant interspecies hybridization. Additionally, analysis of two other NUMTs suggests that such events occur repeatedly. Our findings suggest a complex pattern of speciation in primate/human ancestors and provide one potential explanation for the mosaic nature of fossil morphology found at the emergence of the hominin lineage. A preliminary version of this manuscript was uploaded to the preprint server BioRxiv in 2017 (10.1101/134502).
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.