| Popis: |
Human haemoglobin variants, such as sickle, confer protection against death from malaria; consequently, frequencies of such variants are often greatly elevated in humans from malaria endemic regions. Among non-human primates, the long-tailed macaque,Macaca fascicularis, also displays substantial haemoglobin variation. Almost allM. fascicularishaemoglobin variation is in the alpha globin chain, encoded by two linked genes:HBA1andHBA2. We demonstrate that alpha globin variation inM. fasciculariscorrelates with the strength of malaria selection. We identify a range of missense mutations inM. fascicularisalpha globin and demonstrate that some of these exhibit a strikingHBA1orHBA2specificity, a pattern consistent with computational simulations of selection on genes exhibiting copy number variation. We propose thatM. fascicularisaccumulated amino acid substitutions in its alpha globin genes under malaria selection, in a process that closely mirrors, but does not entirely converge with, human malaria adaptation. |
