Self-domestication in Homo sapiens: Insights from comparative genomics

Constantina Theofanopoulou; Simone Gastaldon; Thomas O'Rourke; Bridget D Samuels; Pedro Tiago Martins; Francesco Delogu; Saleh Alamri; Cedric Boeckx

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0185306

Self-domestication in Homo sapiens: Insights from comparative genomics

PLoS One. 2017 Oct 18;12(10):e0185306. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0185306. eCollection 2017.

Authors

Constantina Theofanopoulou^{1

2}, Simone Gastaldon^{1

3}, Thomas O'Rourke¹, Bridget D Samuels⁴, Pedro Tiago Martins¹, Francesco Delogu⁵, Saleh Alamri¹, Cedric Boeckx^{1

2

6}

Affiliations

¹ Section of General Linguistics, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
² Universitat de Barcelona Institute for Complex Systems, Barcelona, Spain.
³ School of Psychology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
⁴ Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States of America.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, Biotechnology and Food Science, Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Ås, Norway.
⁶ ICREA, Barcelona, Spain.

Abstract

This study identifies and analyzes statistically significant overlaps between selective sweep screens in anatomically modern humans and several domesticated species. The results obtained suggest that (paleo-)genomic data can be exploited to complement the fossil record and support the idea of self-domestication in Homo sapiens, a process that likely intensified as our species populated its niche. Our analysis lends support to attempts to capture the "domestication syndrome" in terms of alterations to certain signaling pathways and cell lineages, such as the neural crest.

Publication types

Comparative Study

MeSH terms

Alleles
Animals
Domestication*
Gene Expression Profiling
Genomics*
Hominidae / genetics
Humans
Selection, Genetic
Species Specificity
Synteny / genetics

Grants and funding

CB acknowledges the financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (grant FFI2016-78034-C2-1-P), a Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant from the European Union (PIRG-GA-2009-256413), research funds from the Fundació Bosch i Gimpera, and from the Generalitat de Catalunya (2014-SGR-200). CTh and TOR acknowledge support from the Generalitat de Catalunya in the form of doctoral (FI) fellowships.