Pleiotropic Effects of Immune Responses Explain Variation in the Prevalence of Fibroproliferative Diseases.

ABSTRACT: Many diseases are differentially distributed among human populations. Differential selection on genetic variants in ancestral environments that coincidentally predispose to disease can be an underlying cause of these unequal prevalence patterns. Selected genes may be pleiotropic, affecting multiple phenotypes and resulting in more than one disease or trait. Patterns of pleiotropy may be helpful in understanding the underlying causes of an array of conditions in a population. For example, several fibroproliferative diseases are more prevalent and severe in populations of sub-Saharan ancestry. We propose that this disparity is due to selection for an enhanced Th2 response that confers resistance to helminthic infections, and concurrently increases susceptibility to fibrosis due to the profib

SUBMITTER: Russell SB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4634921 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature