The genomes of indigenous people in Greenland (pictured) show how they have adapted to thousands of years of frigid temperatures and a diet that is rich in fatty seafood.
Rasmus Nielsen at the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues analysed the genomes of 191 Inuit people from Greenland and compared them with genomes from people of European or Han Chinese descent. They found that the Inuit genomes were enriched for genes that convert certain fatty acids in the diet into more biologically active forms, and that counteract the oxidative stress associated with a high-fat diet. The team also discovered a mutation in the Inuit genomes that is linked to the development of brown fat cells, which generate heat.
These mutations seem to date from at least 20,000 years ago, when Inuit ancestors lived around the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska.
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How Inuit genomes have adapted. Nature 525, 429 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/525429d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/525429d
