Maternal-zygotic epistasis and the evolution of genetic diseases

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

Many birth defects and genetic diseases are expressed in individuals that do not carry the disease causing alleles. Genetic diseases observed in offspring can be caused by gene expression in mothers and by interactions between gene expression in mothers and offspring. It is not clear whether the underlying pattern of gene expression (maternal versus offspring) affects the incidence of genetic disease. Here we develop a 2-locus population genetic model with epistatic interactions between a maternal gene and a zygotic gene to address this question. We show that maternal effect genes that affect disease susceptibility in offspring persist longer and at higher frequencies in a population than offspring genes with the same effects. We find that specific forms of maternalzygotic epistasis can maintain disease causing alleles at high frequencies over a range of plausible values. Our findings suggest that the strength and form of epistasis and the underlying pattern of gene expression may greatly influence the prevalence of human genetic diseases.
Original languageEnglish
Article number478732
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology
Volume2010
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2010

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Maternal-zygotic epistasis and the evolution of genetic diseases'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this