AI Article Synopsis
- The protein-coding gene neuro-oncological ventral antigen 1 (NOVA1) is crucial for brain development and differs between modern humans and our extinct relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans.
- Researchers used genome editing to introduce an ancient version of this gene into modern human cells and studied its effects on brain organoids.
- The archaic version of NOVA1 slowed neural development and changed the complexity and electrical properties of the organoids, suggesting that human-specific changes to this gene may have influenced our evolution.
Article Abstract
The evolutionarily conserved splicing regulator neuro-oncological ventral antigen 1 () plays a key role in neural development and function. also includes a protein-coding difference between the modern human genome and Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes. To investigate the functional importance of an amino acid change in humans, we reintroduced the archaic allele into human induced pluripotent cells using genome editing and then followed their neural development through cortical organoids. This modification promoted slower development and higher surface complexity in cortical organoids with the archaic version of Moreover, levels of synaptic markers and synaptic protein coassociations correlated with altered electrophysiological properties in organoids expressing the archaic variant. Our results suggest that the human-specific substitution in , which is exclusive to modern humans since divergence from Neanderthals, may have had functional consequences for our species' evolution.
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Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8006534 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aax2537 | DOI Listing |
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