Authors
A C Cooper4; H Ilboudo1; V Jamonneau1; V P Alibu2; J Enyaru2; W Weir4; E Matovu2; B Bucheton3; A Macleod4;
1 Centre International de Recherche-Développement sur l’Elevage en zone Subhumide (CIRDES), Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso; 2 Department of Veterinary Parasitology and Microbiology, Makerere University, Uganda; 3 Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Montpellier, France; 4 Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology. University of Glasgow
Discussion
Pathogen-mediated selection can drive an increase in the frequency of alleles that reduce
susceptibility to infectious disease, but maybe otherwise deleterious. It is hypothesised that reduced susceptibility to Human African Trypanosomiasis underlies the high allele frequency of two APOL1 renal risk variants, G1 and G2 in populations with recent African ancestry. In a case-control study we report opposing dominant associations for the G2 variant with protection against T.b. rhodesiense infection, but with more severe disease for T.b. gambiense. Conversely, the G1 variant is not associated with infection resistance for either parasite sub-species but with asymptomatic carriage in T.b. gambiense infection. This analysis suggests a more complex relationship between APOL1 variants and trypanosomiasis than has previously been proposed with opposing evolutionary selective forces at play.
