Leveraging our common African origins to understand human evolution and health

Abstract

In the March 2023 issue of Cell, Fan et al.¹ report whole-genome sequencing across 12 indigenous African populations and analyze local adaptation and evolutionary history. Here, Wonkam and Adeyemo highlight their findings and how this contributes to African and global genomic research.

Figure 1

Major driving factors contributing to African genome complexity (A) Complex demographic history of African populations consists of ancient population evolutionary divergence, including multiple introgressions of archaeid DNA within African genomes, as illustrated by a simplified demographic model indicating at least two introgression events from archaic human that never move out of Africa (blue lines). (B) Migration and admixture events over 300 years (e.g., the Bantu expansion [solid red arrows], back migration [dotted-dashed red and solid green arrows], out-of-Africa migrations [dotted black arrows], and trans-Saharan populations’ movements [solid blue arrow]). (C) Combined variability of environment desert, tropical rainforest, savanna, swamps, and high-altitude mountains and related diverse selection pressures from factors such as climate, diet, and pathogen exposure have drove local adaptation, leading to far-reaching effects on African genomes. (B) and (C) are adapted from Wonkam et al.