Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comparative Study
. 2004 Sep 28;101(39):14300-4.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.0405949101. Epub 2004 Sep 7.

Higher offspring survival among Tibetan women with high oxygen saturation genotypes residing at 4,000 m

Cynthia M Beall  1 , Kijoung Song, Robert C Elston, Melvyn C Goldstein
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Higher offspring survival among Tibetan women with high oxygen saturation genotypes residing at 4,000 m

Cynthia M Beall et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

Here we test the hypothesis that high-altitude native resident Tibetan women with genotypes for high oxygen saturation of hemoglobin, and thus less physiological hypoxic stress, have higher Darwinian fitness than women with low oxygen saturation genotypes. Oxygen saturation and genealogical data were collected from residents of 905 households in 14 villages at altitudes of 3,800-4,200 m in the Tibet Autonomous Region along with fertility histories from 1,749 women. Segregation analysis confirmed a major gene locus with an autosomal dominant mode of inheritance for high oxygen saturation levels, associated with a 10% higher mean. Oxygen saturation genotypic probability estimators were then used to calculate the effect of the inferred oxygen saturation locus on measures of fertility, in a subsample of 691 women (20-59 years of age and still married to their first husbands, those with the highest exposure to the risk of pregnancy). The genotypic probability estimators were not significantly associated with the number of pregnancies or live births. The high oxygen saturation genotypic mean offspring mortality was significantly lower, at 0.48 deaths compared with 2.53 for the low oxygen saturation homozygote, because of lower infant mortality. Tibetan women with a high likelihood of possessing one to two alleles for high oxygen saturation had more surviving children. These findings suggest that high-altitude hypoxia is acting as an agent of natural selection on the locus for oxygen saturation of hemoglobin by the mechanism of higher infant survival of Tibetan women with high oxygen saturation genotypes.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Beall, C. M., Blangero, J., Williams-Blangero, S. & Goldstein, M. C. (1994) Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 95, 271–276. - PubMed
    1. Beall, C. M., Strohl, K. P., Blangero, J., Williams-Blangero, J., Brittenham, G. M. & Goldstein, M. C. (1997) Hum. Biol. 69, 597–604. - PubMed
    1. Goldstein, M. C., Jiao, B., Beall, C. M. & Tsering, P. (2002) China J. 47, 19–39.
    1. Beall, C. M. (2000) High Altitude Med. Biol. 1, 25–32. - PubMed
    1. Hasstedt, S. J. & Moll, P. P. (1989) Genet. Epidemiol. 6, 319–332. - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms