medicalexpress | A single-letter change in the genetic code is enough to generate
blond hair in humans, in dramatic contrast to our dark-haired ancestors.
A new analysis by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) scientists has
pinpointed that change, which is common in the genomes of Northern
Europeans, and shown how it fine-tunes the regulation of an essential
gene.
"This particular genetic variation in humans is
associated with blond hair, but it isn't associated with eye color or
other pigmentation traits," says David Kingsley, an HHMI investigator at
Stanford University who led the study. "The specificity of the switch
shows exactly how independent color changes can be encoded to produce
specific traits in humans." Kingsley and his colleagues published their
findings in the June 1, 2014, issue of the journal Nature Genetics.
Kingsley says a handful of genes likely determine hair color
in humans, however, the precise molecular basis of the trait remains
poorly understood. But Kingsley's discovery of the genetic hair-color
switch didn't begin with a deep curiosity about golden locks. It began
with fish.
