WIKIMEDIA, DANIEL CHRISTENSENToo much, too little, graying, or growing in the wrong place—hair development, and attempts to regulate it, support an industry worth billions of dollars in the U.S. But researchers are now one step closer to identifying some of the genes responsible for certain hair-related traits, according to a study published yesterday (March 1) in Nature Communications.
“We already know several genes involved in balding and hair color,” study coauthor Kaustubh Adhikari of University College London said in a statement. “But this is the first time a gene for graying has been identified in humans, as well as other genes influencing hair shape and density.”
A team of more than 30 researchers compared the genomes of 6,357 volunteers from Latin America with mixed European, Native American, and African ancestry. The team then assessed the appearance of volunteers’ head hair for seven characteristics: shape, color, balding, and graying in men and women; plus beard thickness, monobrow growth, and eyebrow thickness in men.
Looking for the variation underpinning differences in these traits in a genome-wide association study (GWAS), the team was able to identify ...
