Article
Antagonistic pleiotropy as a widespread mechanism for the maintenance of polymorphic disease alleles.
BMC medical genetics - 12 Dec 2011
Carter Ashley J R, Nguyen Andrew Q
Abstract excerpt
BACKGROUND: Many serious diseases have a genetic basis which, from an evolutionary point of view, should have been selected against, resulting in very low frequencies. The remarkable sustained prevalence of a number of disease-associated alleles is therefore surprising. We believe that antagonistic pleiotropy, when multiple effects of a gene have opposing effects on fitness (e.g., sickle cell disease), may be...
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