Final Report Summary - 2SEXES_1GENOME (Sex-specific genetic effects on fitness and human disease)
Genome-wide patterns of sexual antagonism in a number of different organisms suggest that many genetic loci with important fitness effects experience different selection pressures in the two sexes. Identifying these loci could advance our understanding of how sex-differences in disease may have evolved. Our work on the fruit-fly model and from surveys of the biomedical literature suggest that these loci often have sex-specific or sex-limited effects, and that truly sexually antagonistic loci are rare. As such, we may need to revise our models of genome-wide patterns of sexual antagonism and tailor the current strategies used to identify genetic loci with sexually antagonistic effects.