For the first time , scientists have identified the gene that makes your haircloth go gray . As part of a study published inNature Communications , they also identified a new band of gene version associated with features like unibrows , duncical facial hair , and curls .
Led by geneticists at University College London , a group of researchers take apart the genomes of more than 6300 Latin Americans ( 54 per centum female , 46 pct male ) from Brazil , Colombia , Chile , México and Peru to detect the genes associate with the feature of both scalp and facial haircloth . They calculate for association between sure genetic characteristic and traits like hair color , tendency toward graying or balding , beard heaviness , supercilium bushiness , and unibrows . The blood samples used in the study came from a diverse population with mixed European , Native American , and African line of descent .
The gene link to graying , IRF4 , helps regulate and store melanin ( the paint that also determine skin colour ) . Other genes studied include a variant of the FOXL2 cistron that seems to be affiliate with brow thickness , and PAX3 , the gene that dictates whether or not you have a unibrow — at least in men . ( While both human being and woman were tested for familial connection with scalp hair , only men were tested for facial hair machine characteristic . )
By find the genes associated with haircloth features , scientist may be capable to grow direction to change your whisker without curling irons , dye , and cosmetic mathematical product . Though it ’s a long way away , there could one day be a drug for straightening your whisker , to halt your graying at that arrant table salt - and - common pepper colour , or to take away your unibrow . It could also illuminate the mechanisms behind disease associatedwith baldness . But really — get form on that anti - unibrow drug , science .
[ h / tScientific American ]
