Genetic susceptibility to malaria getting complex.
Kwiatkowski D.
The evolution of sickle cell disease illustrates the powerful selective pressure of malaria in Africa, and candidate gene association studies have identified more than ten putative susceptibility determinants involving erythrocytes or the immune system. Efforts at present are aimed at understanding the functional basis of known associations, and at developing both linkage- and association-based approaches of genome-wide screening for novel susceptibility factors.