In article <4ebme0$qj at hydra.acs.ttu.edu>, Ted Joys <mictmj at ttuhsc.edu> wrote:
> There has been much information lately on PBS showing that american
> natives were decimated by diseases brought by european invaders.
> The explanation usually given is that the natives had never been exposed
> to these agents and were a "virgin" population
> --------- stuff deleted ------
> Is there any evidence that exposure to the diseases which killed the
> natives had altered the immune systems of the europeans - altered the B
> cell Ig gene pool, altered the TCR gene pool, selected out MHC genes
> which would carry the epitopes of the infectious agents, etc ????
I've wondered about this on and off ever since hearing Peter Parham
talking about the differences between N American indian MHC sequences
versus S American indian sequences and commenting that the N American
sequences were similar to european sequences while the S American were
distinct. So did diseases that had already depleted european populations
of susceptible MHC haplotypes also deplete Amerindian haplotypes in the
same way, leaving a population of haplotypes similar to those in Europe?
Or did the original European colonists simply screw around a lot?
Paul
--
Paul J Travers phone : +44-(0)171-631-6862 (office)
ICRF Structural Biology Unit " " " 6868 (lab)
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London WC1E 7HX email : travers at europa.lif.icnet.uk
England or : paul at histo.cryst.bbk.ac.uk
