ArticleGenetics2007
Major histocompatibility complex heterozygosity reduces fitness in experimentally infected mice.
Article in Genetics, 2007. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 102 citations in OpenAlex.
- Heterozygote advantage cannot explain MHC diversity, but MHC diversity can explain heterozygote advantage.eLife · 2026Article
- Sex-Dependent Influence of Major Histocompatibility Complex Diversity on Fitness in a Social Mammal.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Putative SNPs in Ovar-DRB1 and GALNTL6 Genes Conferring Susceptibility to Natural Infection of Haemonchus Contortus in Southern Indian Sheep.Acta parasitologica · 2024Article
- Limited associations between MHC diversity and reproductive success in a bird species with biparental care.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Response to MHC-based olfactory cues in a mate choice context in two species of darter (Percidae: Etheostoma).Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Demographic history and conservation genomics of caribou (Evolutionary applications · 2022Article
- Analysis of the Whole-Genome Sequences from anGenes · 2022Article
- Long term patterns of association between MHC and helminth burdens in the bank vole support Red Queen dynamics.Molecular ecology · 2022Article
- Joint estimation of selection intensity and mutation rate under balancing selection with applications to HLA.Genetics · 2022Article
- Functional immunogenetic variation, rather than local adaptation, predicts ectoparasite infection intensity in a model fish species.Molecular ecology · 2021Article
- Balancing selection, genetic drift, and human-mediated introgression interplay to shape MHC (functional) diversity in Mediterranean brown trout.Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- What evolutionary processes maintain MHC IIꞵ diversity within and among populations of stickleback?Molecular ecology · 2021Article
- Spatiotemporal adaptive evolution of an MHC immune gene in a frog-fungus disease system.Heredity · 2021Article
- Adult survival in migratory caribou is negatively associated with MHC functional diversity.Heredity · 2020Article
- MHC-Based Mate Choice in Wild Golden Snub-Nosed Monkeys.Frontiers in genetics · 2020Article
- Sexual selection favours good or bad genes for pathogen resistance depending on males' pathogen exposure.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Both candidate gene and neutral genetic diversity correlate with parasite resistance in female Mediterranean mouflon.BMC ecology · 2019Article
- HLA class I molecular variation and peptide-binding properties suggest a model of joint divergent asymmetric selection.Immunogenetics · 2016Article
- Does multiple paternity influence offspring disease resistance?Journal of evolutionary biology · 2016Article
- The utility of PacBio circular consensus sequencing for characterizing complex gene families in non-model organisms.BMC genomics · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
It is often suggested that heterozygosity at major histocompatibility complex (MHC) loci confers enhanced resistance to infectious diseases (heterozygote advantage, HA, hypothesis), and overdominant selection should contribute to the evolution of these highly polymorphic genes. The evidence for the HA hypothesis is mixed and mainly from laboratory studies on inbred congenic mice, leaving the importance of MHC heterozygosity for natural populations unclear. We tested the HA hypothesis by infecting mice, produced by crossbreeding congenic C57BL/10 with wild ones, with different strains of Salmonella, both in laboratory and in large population enclosures. In the laboratory, we found that MHC influenced resistance, despite interacting wild-derived background loci. Surprisingly, resistance was mostly recessive rather than dominant, unlike in most inbred mouse strains, and it was never overdominant. In the enclosures, heterozygotes did not show better resistance, survival, or reproductive success compared to homozygotes. On the contrary, infected heterozygous females produced significantly fewer pups than homozygotes. Our results show that MHC effects are not masked on an outbred genetic background, and that MHC heterozygosity provides no immunological benefits when resistance is recessive, and can actually reduce fitness. These findings challenge the HA hypothesis and emphasize the need for studies on wild, genetically diverse species.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.