The landscape of human genes involved in the immune response to parasitic worms.

ABSTRACT:

Background

More than 2 billion individuals worldwide suffer from helminth infections. The highest parasite burdens occur in children and helminth infection during pregnancy is a risk factor for preterm delivery and reduced birth weight. Therefore, helminth infections can be regarded as a strong selective pressure.

Results

Here we propose that candidate susceptibility genes for parasitic worm infections can be identified by searching for SNPs that display a strong correlation with the diversity of helminth species/genera transmitted in different geographic areas. By a genome-wide search we identified 3478 variants that correlate with helminth diversity. These SNPs map to 810 distinct human genes including loci involved in regulatory T cell function and in macrophage activatio

SUBMITTER: Fumagalli M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2940816 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature