Divergent allele advantage at MHC-DRB through direct and maternal genotypic effects and its consequences for allele pool composition and mating.

ABSTRACT: It is still debated whether main individual fitness differences in natural populations can be attributed to genome-wide effects or to particular loci of outstanding functional importance such as the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). In a long-term monitoring project on Galápagos sea lions (Zalophus wollebaeki), we collected comprehensive fitness and mating data for a total of 506 individuals. Controlling for genome-wide inbreeding, we find strong associations between the MHC locus and nearly all fitness traits. The effect was mainly attributable to MHC sequence divergence and could be decomposed into contributions of own and maternal genotypes. In consequence, the population seems to have evolved a pool of highly divergent alleles conveying near-optimal MHC divergence even by random

SUBMITTER: Lenz TL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3673058 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature