The selective advantage of cystic fibrosis heterozygotes tested by aDNA analysis: A preliminary investigation

1824-3096

Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000

Biology

Abstract Recently a heterozygote advantage was suggested to explain the high incidence (1:25 carrier individuals in Europeans) of the cystic fibrosis gene. This selective advantage was speculated to be due to a high resistance to chloride-secreting diarrhea, including cholera. Up to now the major efforts to test directly this hypothesis have been limited to animal models. We propose to verify the hypothesis directly on a sample of human individuals who died from cholera during the epidemic in the Mediterranean basin at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In this preliminary investigation we have attempted to check for the presence of amplifiable DNA in the human remains simultaneously in terms of genetic fingerprints and for cystic fibrosis mutations.

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