The oldest human viruses, including herpes, have been uncovered in 50,000-year-old Neanderthal bones - and experts could soon recreate them.
Researchers at Brazil's Federal University of São Paulo identified remnants of the herpesviruses, which causes cold sores, the sexually transmitted papillomavirus and adenovirus, also known as the common cold, in two male Neanderthals' DNA found in a Russian cave.
Previous theories suggested that Neanderthals may have gone extinct because of viruses and the latest study may be the first to provide evidence for this idea.
Now, the team hopes to synthesize the viruses and infect human cells in a lab to see how they compare to their modern-day counterparts.
Researchers identified remnants of herpesvirus, papillomavirus and adenovirus in the DNA of Neanderthals that lived 50,000 years ago, making it the oldest human virus found.
'These Jurassic Park-like viruses could then be studied for their reproductive and pathogenic traits and compared to present-day counterparts,' Marcelo Briones, the study's lead author told NewScientist.
'I am skeptical that this could be achieved given the lack of full understanding of how the viruses' DNA is damaged and how to reconstruct the recovered pieces into a full viral genome,' he added.
'Also, the host-virus interaction, especially in a completely different environment, is something to consider.'
The team found the Neanderthals' remains in Siberia's Chagyrskaya cave in the Altai mountains, which they used to sequence genome data of the ancient beings.
The results determined that the remnants of the viruses were not contracted from possible predators that fed on Neanderthals or from modern humans who might have handled the bones.
Adenovirus causes cold symptoms in modern humans and can cause infections in the tonsils, adenoids and other mucosal tissues while they could develop genital warts and cancer from the sexually transmitted papillomavirus.
Researchers believe the Herpesviruses (pictured) 'might have been a major cause for Neanderthal extinction,' but need to conduct additional testing to confirm the findings
The study reported that researchers believe the 'Herpesviruses, in particular, might have been a major cause for Neanderthal extinction,' but need to conduct additional testing to confirm the findings.
'Taken together, our data indicate that these viruses might represent viruses that really infected Neanderthals,' said Briones.
Briones said that the findings weren't surprising, considering humans today are infected with about 10 diseases over their lifetime.
The Neanderthals' remains were first discovered in 2022 among nine others who all shared DNA, meaning they were related.
A daughter and her father were among the remains and he shared mitochondrial DNA with two men, revealing they shared a female ancestor, possibly the same grandmother.
There were signs that the ages ranged from children and teenagers to adults and are believed to have all died at the same time, but researchers didn't know how adding that there weren't any signs of burial.
Researchers now hope that their new DNA discovery of the three severe diseases could finally shed light on what led to the Neanderthals' deaths and what led to their extinction.
