Gilks, William P, Abbott, Jessica K and Morrow, Edward H (2014) Sex differences in disease genetics: evidence, evolution, and detection. Trends in Genetics, 30 (10). pp. 453-463. ISSN 0168-9525

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Abstract

Understanding the genetic architecture of disease is an enormous challenge, and should be guided by evolutionary principles. Recent studies in evolutionary genetics show that sexual selection can have a profound influence on the genetic architecture of complex traits. Here, we summarise data from heritability studies and genome-wide association studies (GWASs) showing that common genetic variation influences many diseases and medically relevant traits in a sex-dependent manner. In addition, we discuss how the discovery of sex-dependent effects in population samples is improved by joint interaction analysis (rather than separate-sex), as well as by recently developed software. Finally, we argue that although genetic variation that has sex-dependent effects on disease risk could be maintained by mutation-selection balance and genetic drift, recent evidence indicates that intra-locus sexual conflict could be a powerful influence on complex trait architecture, and maintain sex-dependent disease risk alleles in a population because they are beneficial to the opposite sex.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of Life Sciences > Evolution, Behaviour and Environment
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HQ The Family. Marriage. Women > HQ1075 Sex role Q Science Q Science > QH Natural history > QH0301 Biology > QH0426 Genetics > QH0447 Genes. Alleles. Genome Q Science > QH Natural history > QH0301 Biology > QH0426 Genetics > QH0460 Mutations R Medicine > R Medicine (General)
Related URLs:	Organisation
Depositing User:	William Gilks
Date Deposited:	04 Nov 2014 13:54
Last Modified:	01 Mar 2021 11:55
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/50853

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