- cross-posted to:
- science@mander.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- science@mander.xyz
There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The variant observed, involved in zinc regulation and with a role in cellular metabolism, could also have predisposed modern humans to psychiatric disorders such as depression or schizophrenia.
“Through genomic analysis, we noted that the genetic variant observed came from our interbreeding with archaic humans in the past, possibly the Denisovans,” says Ana Roca-Umbert, co-first author of the study.
“We discovered that this mutation surely had implications for the transport of zinc within the cell, and so we contacted Vicente’s team,” recalls Elena Bosch, IBE principal investigator and co-leader of the study.
His team, in the Biophysics of the Immune System group at the Laboratory of Molecular Physiology, undertook the technical challenge of studying the movement of intracellular zinc.
Zinc, an essential trace element for human health, is an important messenger that transfers both information from the outside to the inside of cells and between different cellular compartments.
The team points out that the variant found in this zinc transporter, which is expressed in all tissues of the body, is associated with a greater predisposition to suffering from some psychiatric diseases.
The original article contains 800 words, the summary contains 181 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!