Agriculture accelerated human genome evolution to capture energy from starchy foods

New study finds rapid increase over last 12,000 years in genes for enzymes that digest starch.

Modern humans have more genes to digest starch than hunter-gatherer ancestors.

Rise in genes that code for these enzymes tracks spread of agriculture across Europe from Middle East .

New method for identifying causes of diseases that involve genes with multiple copies in the human genome.

Scientists have long suspected that humans' ability to digest starch may have increased after our ancestors transitioned from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a settled, agricultural lifestyle.

This shift was shown to be associated with more copies of the amylase genes in people from societies that domesticated plants.

Long-read sequencing allows scientists to resolve this region, reading DNA sequences thousands of base pairs long to capture repetitive stretches.

Peter H. Sudmant's research is funded by the Institute of General Medical Sciences of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (R35GM142916 ) The study was published in Nature 's " 2424th edition" ( Nature 's 24th edition).