Common HLA Alleles associated with health, but not with facial attractiveness

dc.contributor.authorCoetzee, Vinet
dc.contributor.authorBarrett, Louise
dc.contributor.authorGreeff, Jacobus Maree
dc.contributor.authorHenzi, S. Peter
dc.contributor.authorPerrett, David Ian
dc.contributor.authorWadee, Ahmed A.
dc.date.accessioned2010-06-22T11:51:54Z
dc.date.available2010-06-22T11:51:54Z
dc.date.issued2007-07
dc.description.abstractThree adaptive hypotheses have been proposed to explain the link between the human leucocyte antigen (HLA) genes, health measures and facial attractiveness: inbreeding avoidance, heterozygote advantage and frequency-dependent selection. This paper reports findings that support a new hypothesis relating HLA to health. We suggest a new method to quantify the level of heterozygosity. HLA heterozygosity did not significantly predict health measures in women, but allele frequency did. Women with more common HLA alleles reported fewer cold and flu bouts per year, fewer illnesses in the previous year and rated themselves healthier than women with rare alleles. To our knowledge, this is the first study to show a positive correlation between HLA allele frequency and general health measures. We propose that certain common HLA alleles confer resistance to prevalent pathogens. Nevertheless, neither HLA heterozygosity nor allele frequency significantly predicted how healthy or attractive men rated the female volunteers. Three non-mutually exclusive explanations are put forward to explain this finding.en
dc.description.sponsorshipThis material is based, in part, upon work supported by the National Research Foundation under Grant number 2053809 to JMG.en_US
dc.identifier.citationCitation: Coetzee V, Barrett L, Greeff JM, Henzi SP, Perrett DI, et al (2007) Common HLA Alleles Associated with Health, but Not with Facial Attractiveness. PLoS ONE 2(7): e640. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000640 [http://www.plosone.org]en
dc.identifier.issn1932-6203
dc.identifier.other10.1371/journal.pone.0000640
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2263/14318
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherPublic Library of Scienceen_US
dc.rights© 2009 Coetzee et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.en_US
dc.subjectCommon HLA Allelesen
dc.subjectFacial attractivenessen
dc.subjectHuman leukocyte antigen (HLA)en
dc.subject.lcshHLA histocompatibility antigensen
dc.subject.lcshAllelomorphismen
dc.subject.lcshHealth behavioren
dc.subject.lcshHeterozygosityen
dc.titleCommon HLA Alleles associated with health, but not with facial attractivenessen
dc.typeArticleen

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