Genome-wide analysis indicates association between heterozygote advantage and healthy aging in humans.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Genetic diversity is known to confer survival advantage in many species across the tree of life. Here, we hypothesize that such pattern applies to humans as well and could be a result of higher fitness in individuals with higher genomic heterozygosity. RESULTS:We use healthy aging as a proxy for better health and fitness, and observe greater heterozygosity in healthy-aged individuals. Specifically, we find that only common genetic variants show significantly higher excess of heterozygosity in the healthy-aged cohort. Lack of difference in heterozygosity for low-frequency variants or disease-associated variants excludes the possibility of compensation for deleterious recessive alleles as a mechanism. In addition, coding SNPs with the highest excess of heterozygosity in the health

SUBMITTER: Xu K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6604157 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature