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Gene-culture coevolution between cattle milk protein genes and human lactase genes

Nature Genetics 35, 311–313 (2003) | Download Citation

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  • An Erratum to this article was published on 01 January 2004

Abstract

Milk from domestic cows has been a valuable food source for over 8,000 years, especially in lactose-tolerant human societies that exploit dairy breeds. We studied geographic patterns of variation in genes encoding the six most important milk proteins in 70 native European cattle breeds. We found substantial geographic coincidence between high diversity in cattle milk genes, locations of the European Neolithic cattle farming sites (>5,000 years ago) and present-day lactose tolerance in Europeans. This suggests a gene-culture coevolution between cattle and humans.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Zvelebil for ideas and discussion. A.B.-P. is supported by a grant from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia through the Graduate Programme in Areas of Basic and Applied Biology, and the work was partially supported by a Praxis project grant. G.L. and P.R.E. were funded by the European Union (Econogene). D.G.B. is a Science Foundation Ireland Investigator.

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, Génomique des Populations et Biodiversité, CNRS UMR 5553, Université Joseph Fourier, B.P. 53, 38041 Grenoble, Cedex 9, France.

    • Albano Beja-Pereira
    • , Gordon Luikart
    •  & Phillip R England

  2. Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos (CIBIO-UP) and Secção Autónoma de Ciências Agrárias, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, Campus Agrário de Vairão, Rua Padre Armando Quintas, 4485-661 Vairão (VCD), Portugal.

    • Albano Beja-Pereira
    •  & Nuno Ferrand

  3. Department of Genetics, Smurfit Institute, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.

    • Daniel G Bradley

  4. Institut für Tierzucht und Haustiergenetik, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Ludwigstr. 21b, 35390 Gießen, Germany.

    • Oliver C Jann
    •  & Georg Erhardt

  5. Department of Biology, University of Ferrara, 44100 Ferrara, Italy.

    • Giorgio Bertorelle

  6. Department of Archaeology and Prehistory, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 4ET, UK.

    • Andrew T Chamberlain

  7. CIISA/UISEE/DETSA, Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária, Polo Universitário da Ajuda, Rua Prof. Cid dos Santos, 1300-477 Lisboa, Portugal.

    • Telmo P Nunes

  8. Department of Genetics and Animal Breeding, Thracian University, Agricultural Faculty, 6000 Stara Zagora, Bulgaria.

    • Stoitcho Metodiev

  9. Departamento de Zoologia/Antropologia da Faculdade de Ciências Praça Gomes Teixeira, 4099-002 Porto, Portugal.

    • Nuno Ferrand

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Albano Beja-Pereira.

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https://doi.org/10.1038/ng1263

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