The course of malaria in mice: Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) effects, but no general MHC heterozygote advantage in single-strain infections

Abstract

A general MHC-heterozygote advantage in parasite-infected organisms is often assumed, although there is little experimental evidence for this. We tested the response of MHC-congenic mice (F2 segregants) to malaria and found the course of infection to be significantly influenced by MHC haplotype, parasite strain, and host gender. However, the MHC heterozygotes did worse than expected from the average response of the homozygotes. Copyright © 2005 by the Genetics Society of America.