PLOS Genetics

Genetic studies of disease often account for risk factors such as body mass index. This adjustment can create a spurious association, called collider bias, which several methods aim to remove. Researchers also convert genetic associations to a scale of underlying disease susceptibility, or liability, so that their magnitudes can be compared across studies. The usual conversion uses the overall frequency of disease.

To survive and reproduce, animals must defend against biotic and abiotic threats, and also allocate metabolic resources to the germline at the appropriate time to support reproductive fidelity. Here we discover that the conserved gene kri-1/KRIT ensures evolutionarily fitness of C. elegans by promoting resistance to bacterial infection, ensuring the integrity of the intestinal epithelial barrier, and controlling the mobilization of lipids from...