7. The theory that red blood cell variants modulate susceptibility to malaria has been investigated for hemoglobin beta
Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2022 12:55 pm
7. The theory that red blood cell variants modulate susceptibility to malaria has been investigated for hemoglobin beta globulin mutants (HBB) that cause sickle cell anemia. Flemming et al. (1979) found that 2.1% of the newborns in rural Nigeria had sickle cell disease (homozygous for the sickle cell allele), and that almost all had died before reaching their teens, and none reached adulthood (i.e considered to be a recessive lethal). a) Estimate the sickle cell allele frequency in rural Nigeria. b) Estimate the selection coefficient for the normal hemoglobin allele Hb^. c) Based on your estimates, what is the fitness of Hb^ allele? ind the late d) What would you expect the equilibrium allele frequency to be for the sickle cell allele in Zambia if the fitness of the normal HbA allele is 0.898 ?