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The Black Death that devastated Eurasia and North Africa in the 14th century had a profound impact on our genetic balance that continues to this day, according to a study recently published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
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| The remains of a victim of the Black Death. Photo: GETTY IMAGES |
Although the genetic variants that helped European ancestors survive the plague continue to provide some protection against similar respiratory diseases today, they also make them susceptible to harmful autoimmune conditions, according to researchers from the University of Bristol (UK).
Researchers have published a comparison of genomes taken from individuals who lived before, during and after the bubonic plague outbreak (caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis) that swept through and wiped out 50% of Europe's population.
The results found that the Black Death shaped the evolution of immune genes like ERAP2. That, in turn, shaped how humans respond to disease today. People with two identical copies of a “good” variant of the ERAP2 gene were about 40% to 50% more likely to survive than people without two variants of the gene.
The team also found that having identical copies of ERAP2 puts many Europeans at a lower risk of respiratory diseases like Covid-19, but also puts them at a higher risk of autoimmune diseases like Crohn's disease and type 1 diabetes.
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