TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of intermittent lead exposure on hominid brain evolution
AU - Joannes-Boyau, Renaud
AU - de Souza, Janaina Sena
AU - Arora, Manish
AU - Austin, Christine
AU - Westaway, Kira
AU - Moffat, Ian
AU - Wang, Wei
AU - Liao, Wei
AU - Zhang, Yingqi
AU - Adams, Justin W.
AU - Fiorenza, Luca
AU - Dérognat, Flora
AU - Moncel, Marie Helene
AU - Schwartz, Gary T.
AU - Bailey, Marian
AU - dos Santos, Filipe F.
AU - Guardia, Gabriela D.A.
AU - Mercuri, Rafael L.V.
AU - Galante, Pedro A.F.
AU - Martins, Aline M.A.
AU - Tsu, Blake L.
AU - Barnes, Christopher A.
AU - Yates, John
AU - Petroski, Luiz Pedro
AU - Sanchez-Sanchez, Sandra M.
AU - Oviedo, Jose
AU - Herai, Roberto H.
AU - Lemos, Bernardo
AU - Tonge, Matthew
AU - Muotri, Alysson R.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC ).
PY - 2025/10/15
Y1 - 2025/10/15
N2 - Gene-environmental interactions shape the evolution of brain architecture and function. Neuro-oncological ventral antigen 1 (NOVA1) is one gene that distinguishes modern humans from extinct hominids. However, the evolutionary pressures that selected the modern NOVA1 allele remain elusive. Here, we show using fossil teeth that several hominids (Australopithecus africanus, Paranthropus robustus, early Homo sp., Gigantopithecus blacki, Pongo sp., Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens) were consistently exposed to lead over 2 million years, contradicting the idea that lead exposure is solely a modern phenomenon. Moreover, lead exposure on human brain organoids carrying the archaic NOVA1 variant disrupts FOXP2 expression in cortical and thalamic organoids, a gene crucial for the development of human speech and language abilities. Overall, the fossil, cellular, and molecular data support that lead exposure may have contributed to the impact of social and behavioral functioning during evolution, likely affording modern humans a survival advantage.
AB - Gene-environmental interactions shape the evolution of brain architecture and function. Neuro-oncological ventral antigen 1 (NOVA1) is one gene that distinguishes modern humans from extinct hominids. However, the evolutionary pressures that selected the modern NOVA1 allele remain elusive. Here, we show using fossil teeth that several hominids (Australopithecus africanus, Paranthropus robustus, early Homo sp., Gigantopithecus blacki, Pongo sp., Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens) were consistently exposed to lead over 2 million years, contradicting the idea that lead exposure is solely a modern phenomenon. Moreover, lead exposure on human brain organoids carrying the archaic NOVA1 variant disrupts FOXP2 expression in cortical and thalamic organoids, a gene crucial for the development of human speech and language abilities. Overall, the fossil, cellular, and molecular data support that lead exposure may have contributed to the impact of social and behavioral functioning during evolution, likely affording modern humans a survival advantage.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105018893670
U2 - 10.1126/sciadv.adr1524
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.adr1524
M3 - Article
C2 - 41091888
AN - SCOPUS:105018893670
SN - 2375-2548
VL - 11
JO - Science advances
JF - Science advances
IS - 42
M1 - eadr1524
ER -