MHC-Dependent Mate Selection within 872 Spousal Pairs of European Ancestry from the Health and Retirement Study.

ABSTRACT: Disassortative mating refers to the phenomenon in which individuals with dissimilar genotypes and/or phenotypes mate with one another more frequently than would be expected by chance. Although the existence of disassortative mating is well established in plant and animal species, the only documented example of negative assortment in humans involves dissimilarity at the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) locus. Previous studies investigating mating patterns at the MHC have been hampered by limited sample size and contradictory findings. Inspired by the sparse and conflicting evidence, we investigated the role that the MHC region played in human mate selection using genome-wide association data from 872 European American spouses from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). First, we treat

SUBMITTER: Qiao Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5793204 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature