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Published on: June 1, 2019
Transmission ratio distortion in the human body louse, Pediculus humanus (Insecta: Phthiraptera)
1Parasitology Section, School of Molecular and Microbial Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia. c.mcmeniman@uq.edu.au
Abstract:
We studied inheritance at three microsatellite loci in eight F, and two F2 families of the body (clothes) louse of humans, Pediculus humanus. The alleles of heterozygous female-parents were always inherited in a Mendelian fashion in these families. Alleles from heterozygous male-parents, however, were inherited in two different ways: (i) in a Mendelian fashion and (ii) in a non-Mendelian fashion, where males passed to their offspring only one of their two alleles, that is, 100% nonrandom transmission. In male body lice, where there was non-Mendelian inheritance, the paternally inherited set of alleles was eliminated. We interpret this pattern of inheritance as evidence for extreme transmission ratio distortion of paternal alleles in this species.
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