Antibiotics Coded in Neanderthal DNA Could Help Us Fight Infections
Search of ancient DNA from Neanderthals and Denisovans has revealed coding for extinct bacteria-killing proteins we could revive to fight infections
Health
December 1, 2022
Ancient humans such as Neanderthals had bodily defenses against bacteria that could help us treat infections today SEBASTIAN WILLNOW/DDP/AFP via Getty Images
Reviving extinct antibiotic molecules encoded in the DNA of Neanderthals and the Denisovans could provide a new weapon in the fight against antimicrobial resistance.
Last year, Caesar de la Fuente at the University of Pennsylvania and his colleagues reported on more than 2000 antibiotic peptides encoded by modern human DNA.
Now, de la Fuente and several of the same researchers have identified six other antibiotic peptides encoded in previously extracted ancient mitochondrial DNA…
