Thalassemia is blood disorder where individuals with thalassemia produce too muc

Question

Thalassemia is blood disorder where individuals with thalassemia produce too much iron. This disease is inherited as an autosomal recessive. It has been hypothesized that heterozygous individuals have some immunity to malaria (similar to sickle cell anaemia). You obtain blood samples from a Mediterranean population of humans where malaria is endemic and among 100 individuals find 3 with thalassemia and 50 who are carriers. Are these results consistent with the hypothesis that heterozygous individuals have partial immunity to malaria?

Explanation / Answer

Thalassemia is a genetic disorder with abnormal haemoglobin production due to the mutation of the beta-globulin gene, the person who has the Allie without symptoms may be a heterozygote. Similar to sickle cell anaemia heterozygote generally shows a selective advantage over homozygotes due to having immunity against malaria.

In the above study, 50% of carriers found in a sample of 100 people. So it indicates that heterozygotes are considerably high in number than homozygote. so as malaria endemic to the place where the study is carried and heterozygotes are high in number it suggests that they are getting a selective advantage over homozygote may be due to malarial resistance. the less number of deceased individuals might be reported due to the severity of the disease.

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