Mitochondrial Eve (mt-mrca) is the name given by researchers to the woman who is defined as the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for all currently living humans. Matrilineality is a system in which lineage is traced through the mother and maternal ancestors In Genetics, the most recent common ancestor ( MRCA) of any set of Organisms is the most recent individual from which all organisms in the group are directly 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Human beings, humans or man (Origin 1590–1600 L homō man OL hemō the earthly one (see Humus Passed down from mother to offspring, her mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is now found in all living humans: every mtDNA in every living person is derived from hers. Mitochondrial DNA ( mtDNA) is the DNA located in Organelles called mitochondria. Mitochondrial Eve is the female counterpart of Y-chromosomal Adam, the patrilineal most recent common ancestor, although they lived at different times. In human Genetics, Y-chromosomal Adam ( Y- MRCA) is the patrilineal Human Most recent common ancestor (MRCA from whom all Patrilineality (aka agnatic kinship) is a system in which one belongs to one's father's lineage it generally involves the Inheritance of property names or titles
She is believed to have lived about 140,000 years ago in what is now Ethiopia, Kenya or Tanzania. NOTE This intro is the result of careful NPOV work Please do not make potentially controversial edits to it without first discussing on the talk page The Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia to the north Somalia to the northeast Tanzania to the south Tanzania ˌtænzəˈniːə officially the United Republic of Tanzania (Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya The time she lived is calculated based on the molecular clock technique of correlating elapsed time with observed genetic drift. The molecular clock (based on the molecular clock hypothesis ( MCH) is a technique in Molecular evolution to relate the divergence time of two Species In Population genetics, genetic drift is the accumulation of random events that change the makeup of a gene pool slightly but often compound over time
Mitochondrial Eve is the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all humans via the mitochondrial DNA pathway, not the unqualified MRCA of all humanity. In Genetics, the most recent common ancestor ( MRCA) of any set of Organisms is the most recent individual from which all organisms in the group are directly All living humans can trace their ancestry back to the MRCA via at least one of their parents, but Mitochondrial Eve is defined via the maternal line. Therefore, she necessarily lived at least as long, though likely much longer, ago than the MRCA of all humanity.
The existence of Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam does not imply the existence of population bottlenecks or a first couple. A population bottleneck (or genetic bottleneck) is an Evolutionary event in which a significant percentage of a population or species is killed or otherwise prevented Various Creation myths have a first human, a Legendary first Human being. They each lived within a large human population at a different time.
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Matrilineal descent
Mitochondrial Eve is the most recent common ancestor of all humans via the mitochondrial DNA pathway. In Genetics, the most recent common ancestor ( MRCA) of any set of Organisms is the most recent individual from which all organisms in the group are directly In other words, she is the MRCA found when ancestry of all living humans is traced back in time, following only the maternal lineage. The mitochondrial DNA pathway is equivalent to maternal lineage, because mitochondrial DNA is only passed down from mother to child, never father to child. Mitochondrial DNA ( mtDNA) is the DNA located in Organelles called mitochondria. [1]
To find the Mitochondrial Eve of all living humans, one can start by tracing a line from every individual to his/her mother, then continue those lines from each of those mothers to their mothers and so on, effectively tracing a family tree backward in time based purely on mitochondrial lineages. Going back through time these mitochondrial lineages will converge when two or more women have the same mother. The further back in time one goes, the fewer mitochondrial ancestors of living humans there will be. Eventually only one is left, and this one is the most recent common matrilineal ancestor of all humans alive today, i. e. Mitochondrial Eve.
It is possible to draw the same matrilineal tree forward in time by starting with all human female contemporaries of Mitochondrial Eve. Some of these women may have died childless. Others left only male children. For the rest who became mothers with at least one daughter, one can trace a line forward in time connecting them to their daughter(s). As the forward lineages progress in time, more and more lineage lines become extinct, as the last female in a line dies childless or leaves no female children. Eventually, only one single lineage remains, which includes all mothers, and in the next generation, all people, and hence all people alive today.
Misconceptions
Mitochondrial Eve is the most recent common matrilineal ancestor, not the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all humans. Matrilineality is a system in which lineage is traced through the mother and maternal ancestors In Genetics, the most recent common ancestor ( MRCA) of any set of Organisms is the most recent individual from which all organisms in the group are directly The MRCA's offspring have led to all living humans via sons and daughters, but Mitochondrial Eve must be traced only through female lineages, so she is estimated to have lived much longer ago than the MRCA. While Mitochondrial Eve is thought to have been living around 140,000 years ago, according to probabilistic studies,[2] the MRCA could have been living as recently as 3,000 years ago. [3]
Allan Wilson's naming Mitochondrial Eve[4] after Eve of the Genesis creation story has led to some misunderstandings among the general public. Allan Charles Wilson ( 18 October 1934 – 21 July 1991) was a pioneer in the use of molecular approaches to understand Adam (אָדָם ʼĀḏām, "dust man mankind" آدم; Ge'ez: አዳ and Eve (חַוָּה Ḥawwā, "living Creation according to Genesis refers to the Hebrew narrative of the creation of the heavens and the earth as told in chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis A common misconception is that Mitochondrial Eve was the only living human female of her time. While it is theoretically possible that she was the only human female of her time; had she been the only living female of her time, humanity would most likely have become extinct due to an extreme population bottleneck. In Biology and Ecology, extinction is the cessation of existence of a Species or group of taxa. A population bottleneck (or genetic bottleneck) is an Evolutionary event in which a significant percentage of a population or species is killed or otherwise prevented
Indeed, not only were many women alive at the same time as Mitochondrial Eve but many of them have descendants alive today. They may have left descendants via either son or daughters (and grandsons or granddaughters, and so on). Nuclear genes from these contemporary women of Mitochondrial Eve are present in today's population, but mitochondrial DNA from them is not. Nuclear gene is a Gene located in the Cell nucleus of an Eukaryote. [1]
What distinguishes Mitochondrial Eve (and her matrilineal ancestors) from all her female contemporaries is that she has a purely matrilineal line of descent to all humans alive today, whereas all her female contemporaries with descendants alive today have at least one male in every line of descent. Because mitochondrial DNA is only passed through matrilineal descent, all humans alive today have mitochondrial DNA that is traceable back to Mitochondrial Eve.
Furthermore, it can be shown that every female contemporary of Mitochondrial Eve either has no living descendant today or is an ancestor to all living people. Starting with 'the' MRCA at around 3,000 years ago, one can trace all ancestors of the MRCA backward in time. At every ancestral generation, more and more ancestors (via both paternal and maternal lines) of MRCA are found. These ancestors are by definition also common ancestors of all living people. Eventually, there will be a point in past where all humans can be divided into two groups: those who left no descendants today and those who are common ancestors of all living humans today. This point in time is termed the identical ancestors point and is estimated to be between 5,000 and 15,000 years ago. In Genetic genealogy, the identical ancestors point (IAP is that point in a given population's past where each individual then alive turned out to be either the ancestor of Since Mitochondrial Eve is estimated to have lived more than hundred thousand years before the identical ancestors point, every woman contemporary to her is either not an ancestor of any living people, or a common ancestor of all living people. [2][5]
Mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial organelles, which contain mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), are passed only from mother to offspring. Mitochondrial DNA ( mtDNA) is the DNA located in Organelles called mitochondria. In Cell biology, a mitochondrion (plural mitochondria) is a membrane-enclosed Organelle found in most eukaryotic cells. In Cell biology, an organelle (pronunciation /ɔː(rgəˡnɛl/ is a specialized subunit within a cell that has a specific function and is usually separately enclosed Mitochondrial DNA ( mtDNA) is the DNA located in Organelles called mitochondria. A comparison of DNA sequences from mtDNA in a population reveals a molecular phylogeny. A DNA sequence or genetic sequence is a succession of letters representing the Primary structure of a real or hypothetical DNA Molecule Unlike mtDNA, which is outside the nucleus, genes containing nuclear DNA become recombined after being inherited from both parents, and therefore we can be statistically less certain about nuclear DNA origins than we can for mtDNA, which is only inherited from the mother. Nuclear DNA, nuclear deoxyribonucleic acid (nDNA is DNA contained within a nucleus of eukaryotic organisms. Genetic recombination is the process by which a strand of genetic material (usually DNA; but can also be RNA) is broken and then joined to a different DNA molecule A statistic (singular is the result of applying a function (statistical Algorithm) to a set of data. mtDNA also mutates at a higher rate compared to nuclear DNA, so it gives researchers a more useful, magnified view of the diversity present in a population. [6][7]
Just as mitochondria are inherited matrilineally, Y-chromosomes are inherited patrilineally. The Y chromosome is the sex-determining Chromosome in most Mammals including Humans In mammals it contains the gene SRY, which triggers [8] Thus it is possible to apply the same principles outlined above to men. The common patrilineal ancestor of all humans alive today has been dubbed Y-chromosomal Adam. In human Genetics, Y-chromosomal Adam ( Y- MRCA) is the patrilineal Human Most recent common ancestor (MRCA from whom all Importantly, the genetic evidence suggests that the most recent patriarch of all humanity is much more recent than the most recent matriarch, suggesting that 'Adam' and 'Eve' were not alive at the same time. While 'Eve' is believed to be alive 140,000 years ago, 'Adam' lived only 60,000 years ago. [2]
Eve and the Out-of-Africa theory
Since Mitochondrial Eve is believed to have lived in Africa she is sometimes referred to as African Eve, an ancestor who has been hypothesized on the grounds of fossil as well as DNA evidence. FOSSIL is a standard protocol for allowing serial communication for Telecommunications programs under the DOS Operating system. According to the most common interpretation of the mitochondrial DNA data, the titles belong to the same hypothetical woman. Family trees (or "phylogenies") constructed on the basis of mitochondrial DNA comparisons show that the living humans whose mitochondrial lineages branched earliest from the tree are indigenous Africans, whereas the lineages of indigenous peoples on other continents all branch off from African lines. Researchers therefore reason that all living humans descend from Africans, some of whom migrated out of Africa and populated the rest of the world. If the mitochondrial analysis is correct, then because mitochondrial Eve represents the root of the mitochondrial family tree, she must have predated the exodus and lived in Africa. Therefore many researchers take the mitochondrial evidence as support for the "single-origin" or Out-of-Africa model. In Paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans is one of two hypotheses of the origin of anatomically modern humans Homo sapiens sapiens [2]
Some people use the mtDNA family tree as evidence of a population bottleneck (e. A population bottleneck (or genetic bottleneck) is an Evolutionary event in which a significant percentage of a population or species is killed or otherwise prevented g. Toba catastrophe theory) giving rise to the human species. According to the Toba catastrophe theory, 70000 to 75000 years ago a supervolcanic event at Lake Toba, on Sumatra, reduced the world's human population There are, however, many ways such family trees can be constructed. A tree can be constructed based on any gene, not just the mitochondrial DNA. When different such trees including the mtDNA tree are compared, no population bottleneck is found because different trees show different coalescent points. In Genetics, coalescent theory is a retrospective model of population genetics that traces all Alleles of a Gene in a sample from a population to a single The inconsistencies between coalescent points indicate that there had been numerous gene interchanges between population groups around the world, even after the first exodus out of Africa. This idea forms the basis of Alan Templeton's 'Out of Africa Again and Again' theory. Alan Templeton is a United States Geneticist and statistician from Washington University in St [9][2]
The Mitochondrial DNA provides another support for the Out of Africa hypothesis in the form of gene diversity. In Paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans is one of two hypotheses of the origin of anatomically modern humans Homo sapiens sapiens One finding not subject to interpretation is that the greatest diversity of mitochondrial DNA sequences exists among Africans. This diversity is widely believed to have accumulated because humans have been living longer in Africa than anywhere, although the same relative diversity can also be explained if just more people lived in Africa than in other regions - an interpretation of the past that all evolutionary models also accept, even those that contradict the African-origin theory, such as Multiregional evolution. In paleoanthropology, the multiregional hypothesis is one of two accounts of the origin of anatomically modern humans Homo sapiens.
Academic investigation
Criticisms of the original paper by Cann, Stoneking and Wilson[4] include:
- Of the 147 persons sampled, only two were from sub-Saharan Africa. The other 18 'Africans' in the study were black Americans.
- The method to generate the tree was not guaranteed to find the most parsimonious tree.
- The method used to root the tree placed it at the midpoint of the longest branch (midpoint rooting). This could lead to a wrong position of the root if for example the rate of evolution is higher in Africa.
- Restriction-fragment length polymorphism is ill-suited for estimation of mutation rates which is essential in timing evolutionary events.
- Weak statistical analysis.
Ingman et al. (2000)[10] repeated the study while avoiding its major pitfalls:
- They sampled 53 persons, 32 of whom were Africans from different regions of sub-Saharan Africa.
- They sequenced the complete mtDNA but excluded the rapidly evolving D-loop in the analysis. In Molecular biology, a displacement loop or D-loop is a DNA structure where the two strands of a double-stranded DNA molecule are separated for a stretch
- An outgroup (chimpanzee) mtDNA sequence was used to root the tree (outgroup rooting). Chimpanzee (often shortened to chimp) is the common name for the two extant Species of Apes in the Genus Pan. Outgroup rooting is much more reliable than midpoint rooting.
The study by Ingman et al. verifies the major conclusions of Cann et al. of an African origin of human mtDNA within the past 172 000 ± 50 000 years.
In popular culture
- Bryan Sykes has written a popular science book entitled The Seven Daughters of Eve. Bryan Sykes is Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Wolfson College. For the 1935-1949 film series see Popular Science (film. Popular Science is an American monthly Magazine founded in 1872 The Seven Daughters of Eve (2001 ISBN 0-393-02018-5 is a book by Bryan Sykes that presents the theory of Human mitochondrial genetics to a general audience
- In River Out of Eden, Richard Dawkins discusses human ancestry in the context of a river of genes and shows that Mitochondrial Eve is one of the many common ancestors we can trace back to via different gene pathways. River out of Eden (subtitled "A Darwinian View of Life" is a 1995 Popular science book by Richard Dawkins. Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941 is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and Popular science
- The Discovery Channel produced a documentary entitled The Real Eve, based on the book Out of Eden by Stephen Oppenheimer. Discovery Channel is an American Satellite and Cable TV channel (also delivered via IPTV, Terrestrial television and Documentary film is a broad category of visual expression that is based on the attempt in one fashion or another to " Document " reality The Real Eve, known as Where We Came From in the United Kingdom, is a 2002 documentary based on the book Out Stephen Oppenheimer (born 1947 a British physician a member of Green College Oxford and an honorary fellow of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, performs and
- The Japanese novel, horror film and video game series Parasite Eve uses the Mitochondrial Eve theory as the basis for a fantasy about a scientist resurrecting his wife by regenerating her liver cells, with disastrous effects. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. A novel (from Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle for "new" "news" or "short story Horror films are Movies that strive to elicit Fear, Horror and terror responses from viewers A video game is a Game that involves interaction with a User interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. Parasite Eve is the name of a Japanese Novel by Hideaki Sena, first published in Kadokawa Horror Bunko, which has been adapted into a In Biology, an Organism is said to regenerate a lost or damaged part if the part regrows so that the original function is restored
- Greg Egan has written a short story called "Mitochondrial Eve". Greg Egan (born 20 August 1961) is an Australian science fiction author.
- The anime/manga series K. (anime in Japanese, ˈmɑŋgə is the Japanese word for Comics (sometimes called komikku コミック and print Cartoons In their modern form manga date from shortly R. I. E. G made several references to mitochondria and the existence of the Mitochondrial Eve theory, among many other theories of evolution and human creation.
- Arthur C. Clarke's novel The Light of Other Days describes a sequence where mitochondrial DNA is visually traced back to a Mitochondrial Eve. Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE (16 December 1917–19 March 2008 was a British Science fiction Author, Inventor, and "Light of Other Days" is also a science fiction short story by Bob Shaw.
- The manga series Elfen Lied also mentions Mitochondrial Eve, with the suggestion of creating a new race, with a new Mitochondrial Eve. ˈmɑŋgə is the Japanese word for Comics (sometimes called komikku コミック and print Cartoons In their modern form manga date from shortly is a Japanese Manga series created by manga author Lynn Okamoto.
See also
References
- ^ a b See the chapter All Africa and her progenies in Dawkins, Richard (1995). In Genetics, coalescent theory is a retrospective model of population genetics that traces all Alleles of a Gene in a sample from a population to a single A genealogical DNA test examines the Nucleotides at specific locations on a person's DNA for Genetic genealogy purposes Genetic genealogy is the application of Genetics to traditional genealogy. In Human genetics, Haplogroup L1 is a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA haplogroup. Human evolution, or anthropogenesis, is the part of biological Evolution concerning the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct Species In Human genetics, a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup is a Haplogroup defined by differences in human mitochondrial DNA. The last universal ancestor ( LUA) also called the last universal common ancestor ( LUCA) the cenancestor or "number one" The mitochondrial genome is the genetic material of the Mitochondria. In Genetics, the most recent common ancestor ( MRCA) of any set of Organisms is the most recent individual from which all organisms in the group are directly The neutral theory of molecular evolution is an influential theory that was introduced with provocative effect by Motoo Kimura in the late 1960s and early 1970s In Paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans is one of two hypotheses of the origin of anatomically modern humans Homo sapiens sapiens This timeline of the evolution of life outlines the major events in the development The timeline of human evolution outlines the major events in the development of Human Species, and the Evolution of humans' Ancestors It includes Y-chromosomal Aaron is the name given to the hypothesised most recent common ancestor of many of the patrilineal Jewish priestly caste known as Kohanim In human Genetics, Y-chromosomal Adam ( Y- MRCA) is the patrilineal Human Most recent common ancestor (MRCA from whom all Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941 is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and Popular science River Out of Eden. River out of Eden (subtitled "A Darwinian View of Life" is a 1995 Popular science book by Richard Dawkins. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-06990-8.
- ^ a b c d e Dawkins, Richard (2004). Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941 is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and Popular science The Ancestor's Tale, A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life. The Ancestor's Tale (subtitled A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life) is a 2004 Popular science Book by Richard Dawkins Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-618-00583-8.
- ^ Rohde DLT, Olson S, Chang JT (2004) "Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans". Nature 431: 562-566.
- ^ a b Cann, R. L. , Stoneking, M. , and Wilson, A.C., 1987, "Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution", Nature 325; pp 31–36. Allan Charles Wilson ( 18 October 1934 – 21 July 1991) was a pioneer in the use of molecular approaches to understand Online: Cann et al. (1987)
- ^ Rohde, DLT , On the common ancestors of all living humans. Submitted to American Journal of Physical Anthropology. (2005)
- ^ A. C. Wilson, R. L. Cann, S. M. Carr, M. George Jr. , U. B. Gyllensten, K. Helm- Bychowski, R. G. Higuchi, S. R. Palumbi, E. M. Prager, R. D. Sage, and M. Stoneking (1985) "Mitochondrial DNA and two perspectives on evolutionary genetics". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 26:375-400
- ^ Bryan Sykes The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry, W. Bryan Sykes is Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Wolfson College. The Seven Daughters of Eve (2001 ISBN 0-393-02018-5 is a book by Bryan Sykes that presents the theory of Human mitochondrial genetics to a general audience W. Norton, 2001, hardcover, 306 pages, ISBN 0-393-02018-5
- ^ Bryan Sykes (2004). Bryan Sykes is Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Wolfson College. Adam's Curse. A Future without Men. " Adam's Curse " is also the title of a poem by William Butler Yeats. New York: W. W. Norton.
- ^ Out of Africa Again and Again by Templeton in Nature
- ^ Nature 408, 708-713 (7 December 2000) | doi:10. 1038/35047064. Online:Ingman et al. (2000)
- Excoffier, L. , and Yang, Z. , "Substitution Rate Variation Among Sites in Mitochondrial Hypervariable Region I of Humans and Chimpanzees", 1999, Mol. Biol. Evol. 16; pp 1357–1368
- Kaessmann, H. , and Pääbo, S. : "The genetical history of humans and the great apes". Journal of Internal Medicine 251: 1–18 (2002). pubmed
- Laurence Loewe and Siegfried Scherer, “Mitochondrial Eve: The Plot Thickens,” Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Vol. 12, 11 November 1997, p. Events 308 - The Congress of Carnuntum: Attempting to keep peace within the Roman Empire, the leaders of the Tetrarchy declare 422.
- Nicole Maca-Meyer , Ana M González , José M Larruga, Carlos Flores and Vicente M Cabrera (2001) "Major genomic mitochondrial lineages delineate early human expansions". BMC Genetics Biomed central
- Oppenheimer, Stephen. The Real Eve, Carroll & Graf; (September 9, 2004) ISBN 0-7867-1334-8
- Vigilant, L. , Pennington, R. , Harpending, H. , Kocher, T. D. , Wilson, A. C. , 1989, "Mitochondrial DNA Sequences in Single Hairs from a Southern African Population", Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 86; pp 9350-9354
- Thomas J. Parsons et al. , “A High Observed Substitution Rate in the Human Mitochondrial DNA Control Region,” Nature Genetics, Vol. 15 April 1997, p. Events 1450 - Battle of Formigny: Toward the end of the Hundred Years' War, the French attack and nearly annihilate English 365.
- Vigilant, L. , Stoneking, M. , Harpending, H. , Hawkes, K. , Wilson, A. C. , 1991, "African Populations and the Evolution of the Human Mitochondrial DNA", Science 253; pp 1503–1507 Pubmed
- Watson E. , Forster P. , Richards M. , Bandelt H. -J. (1997). "Mitochondrial Footprints of Human Expansions in Africa. " American Journal of Human Genetics. 61: 691-704 pubmed
- Spencer Wells The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey, Princeton University Press, January 2003, hardcover, 246 pages, ISBN 0-691-11532-X
External links
- Krishna Kunchithapadam, "What if anything is a Mitochondrial Eve?": a simple explanation
- Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam Diagrams
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