High MHC diversity confers no advantage for phenotypic quality and reproductive performance in a wild bird.

ABSTRACT: Genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) encode antigen-binding molecules and are an integral part of the acquired immune response of vertebrates. In general, high individual MHC diversity is expected to increase fitness by broadening the spectrum of pathogens recognized by the immune system, in accordance with the heterozygote advantage mechanism. On the other hand, the optimality hypothesis assumes that individuals with optimal (intermediate), rather than maximum, diversity of the MHC will achieve the highest fitness because of inherent costs associated with expressing diverse MHC alleles. Here, we tested for associations between individual diversity of the MHC class I and class II genes (binding antigens of intra- and extracellular pathogens respectively) and a range of fitne

SUBMITTER: Pikus E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9542035 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature