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what keeps sickle cell anemia in the gene pool? is there some rare beneficial aspect? or is it because natural selection acts largely on chromosomes instead of
by DoctorOetker 8y ago
what keeps sickle cell anemia in the gene pool? is there some rare beneficial aspect?
or is it because natural selection acts largely on chromosomes instead of genes, and the other variants of the chromosomes have similar negative imperfections? or is it because the chromosome variants that propagate sickle cell anemia contain a different gene that is comparatively better than the equivalent gene on some of the non SCA carrying chromosomes?
i.e. chromosome binding of genes forces natural selection to largely take the good with the bad genes, without cherry picking genes within chromosomes, and mostly operates on chromosome fitness as opposed to gene fitness?
- pjscott 8y agoBeing heterozygous for the sickle cell trait gives some protection against malaria, which explains why the two tend to be common in the same parts of the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterozygote_advantage#Sickle-cell_anemia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterozygote_advantage#Sickle-... (Nicely guessed, by the way!)
- DoctorOetker 8y agothanks for pointing this out! does this mene using gene drive to expell SCA alleles from the gene pool would result in a higher malaria rate? it would seem that if one could put both SCA and non-SCA alleles in the same chromosome the advantage would be unconditional?