Natural selection on genes that underlie human disease susceptibility

作者：Blekhman Ran; Man Orna; Herrmann Leslie; Boyko Adam R; Indap Amit; Kosiol Carolin; Bustamante Carlos D; Teshima Kosuke M; Przeworskil Molly^*

来源：Current Biology, 2008, 18(12): 883-889.

DOI：10.1016/j.cub.2008.04.074

What evolutionary forces shape genes that contribute to the risk of human disease? Do similar selective pressures act on alleles that underlie simple versus complex disorders [1-3]? Answers to these questions will shed light onto the origin of human disorders (e.g., [4]) and help to predict the population frequencies of alleles that contribute to disoase risk, with important implications for the efficient design of mapping studies [5-7]. As a first step toward addressing these questions, we created a hand-curated version of the Mendelian Inheritance in Man database (OMIM). We then examined selective pressures on Mendelian-disease genes, genes that contribute to complex-disease risk, and genes known to be essential in mouse by analyzing patterns of human polymorphism and of divergence between human and rhesus macaque. We found that Mendel ian-disease genes appear to be under widespread purifying selection, especially when the disease mutations are dominant (rather than recessive). In contrast, the class of genes that influence complex-disease risk shows little signs of evolutionary, conservation, possibly because this category includes targets of both purifying and positive selection.

• 出版日期2008-6-24