I was just reading Evolution of lactose tolerance, and in it one line says \"But

Question

I was just reading Evolution of lactose tolerance, and in it one line says "But there was a time in human history when our diet and environment conspired to create conditions that mimicked those of a disease epidemic".

Something I've always wondered is rather than natural selection occurring and survival of the fittest and so on, is that a viral epidemic caused a mutation in the survivors, i.e. DNA was inserted from the virus that modified the survivors genome. There is some evidence that a significant percentage of the human genome comes from viruses. Probably a naive question - so is there any evidence that this has occurred? From my lay perspective this is what attempts at genetic engineering use, so it's possible nature already did this?

It's always seemed to me that natural selection and point mutations, and the chance meeting of two people with the same mutation would be too slow and viruses would be a more efficient method to evolve a large population at the same time. Things like punctuated evolution might support this? not really sure.

Explanation / Answer

There is some nice work from Pardis Sabeti in this broad area (not just viruses but pathogens in general). Her colleagues have found polymorphisms in SLC40A1, encoding an iron transport protein, that influence susceptibility to tuberculosis. She's also looked at human genetic variation and susceptibility to Lassa fever. And this paper talks about CD36 and malaria in sub-Saharan African populations (no association). Look at her work from 2009 onward, as there is a lot there. They're also looking at variation in the pathogen because it is a two-way interaction.

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