The ferroportin Q248H mutation protects from anemia, but not malaria or bacteremia

Researchers have shown that the iron export mutation (Q248H) that primarily occurs in populations of African ancestry may protect from iron deficiency and anemia. In contrast to previously published work (Zhang et al. 2018), their work using data for over 18,000 children show that there is little evidence that the mutation protects against malaria nor is it evolutionary selected in African populations due to malaria exposure. They also show that the mutation does not protect from bloodstream bacterial infections.

Available at https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/9/eaaw0109