Genome-wide identification of susceptibility alleles for viral infections through a population genetics approach

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Abstract

Viruses have exerted a constant and potent selective pressure on human genes throughout evolution. We utilized the marks left by selection on allele frequency to identify viral infection-associated allelic variants. Virus diversity (the number of different viruses in a geographic region) was used to measure virus-driven selective pressure. Results showed an excess of variants correlated with virus diversity in genes involved in immune response and in the biosynthesis of glycan structures functioning as viral receptors; a significantly higher than expected number of variants was also seen in genes encoding proteins that directly interact with viral components. Genome-wide analyses identified 441 variants significantly associated with virus-diversity; these are more frequently located within gene regions than expected, and they map to 139 human genes. Analysis of functional relationships among genes subjected to virus-driven selective pressure identified a complex network enriched in viral products-interacting proteins. The novel approach to the study of infectious disease epidemiology presented herein may represent an alternative to classic genome-wide association studies and provides a large set of candidate susceptibility variants for viral infections. © 2010 Fumagalli et al.

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APA

Fumagalli, M., Pozzoli, U., Cagliani, R., Comi, G. P., Bresolin, N., Clerici, M., & Sironi, M. (2010). Genome-wide identification of susceptibility alleles for viral infections through a population genetics approach. PLoS Genetics, 6(2). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1000849

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