Pinson et al. compared the impact of the modern human transketolase-like 1 (hTKTLl) and the "putative Neanderthal variant" (aTKTLl) in overexpression experiments in animal models and in genome-edited brain organoids. They found that the hTKTLl, but not aTKTLl, stimulates the proliferation of basal radial glial cells, increasing the number of cortical neurons (erroneously pointed out as neocortical neurons in their manuscript). They concluded that modern humans would have increased neurons in the cortex. Such rationale would work if the aTKTLl allele were rare in modern human populations. Full text: dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.adf0602 Herai et al. discuss the known fact that a low percentage of modern humans who lack any overt phenotypes carry the ancestral TKTL1 allele. Our paper demonstrates that the amino acid substitution in TKTL1 increases neural progenitor cells and neurogenesis in the developing brain. It is another question if, and to what extent, this has consequences for the adult brain. Full text: dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.adf2212.
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