How much Denisovian DNA is in Europeans

This information is generally reported ... humans is zero or close to zero in people from African populations, and is about 1 to 2 percent in people of European or Asian ......

The relatively low power to detect true Denisovan segments is likely to reflect the fact that the Siberian Denisovan genome that we use for detecting these segments is known to be deeply divergent from the Denisovan population that introgressed into the ancestors of Oceanians (much more divergent than the Altai Neanderthal genome is from the introgressing Neanderthal population) [6]. ... The raw data analyzed for 277 of the samples analyzed here are available through the EBI European Nucleotide Archive under accession numbers PRJEB9586 and ERP010710. A version of the genotype data we analyzed

... Around 3% of all the ancient parts of the genome appear to be Denisovan in origin. The Denisovans – another branch of ancient hominins – are generally considered to have lived in Asia, compared to the more Eurocentric Neanderthals.

Ancient DNA studies over the past decade have yielded a plethora of insights into the Denisovan archaic hominin group. The authors review our understanding of Denisovan population history and their interactions with other human groups, insights from studies of Denisovan ancestry in modern humans, what we know about the Denisovan phenotype and their impact on our own evolutionary history.

The researchers ended up with a large catalog of 56,000 to 112,000 potentially archaic variants—and a few surprises. They found, for example, that Icelanders had inherited 3.3% of their archaic DNA from Denisovans and 12.2% from unknown sources.

An 11.1-Mb region significantly depleted of Denisovan and Neandertal ancestry in all populations is shown in light pink. (C) The frequency of archaic haplotypes in Melanesians versus Europeans. The red line indicates the 99th percentile defined by neutral coalescent simulations. Notable genes are labeled. (D) Visual representation of a high-frequency haplotype encompassing GBP4 and GBP7.

Western Europeans are the least likely non-Africans to have Neanderthal or Denisovan DNA while Africans have almost none. Related: DNA from mysterious 'Denisovans' helped modern humans survive · “It’s a very comprehensive look at how the modern human population evolved, how we got to where are today,” UCLA’s Sriram Sankararaman, a co-author on the study that appeared in Current Biology, told FoxNews.com.

For Europeans, it’s as much as 2%. A new study has found that our ancestors interbred with two distinct Denisovan populations, increasing the probability of the presence in modern populations of DNA inherited from this ancient and mysterious ...

When the skull came to light in ... sequences from the group had been detected in the genomes of present-day Asians, but not Europeans, suggesting that this region was where the Denisovans predominantly lived....