Common Variants in the Trichohyalin Gene Are Associated with Straight Hair in Europeans

Sarah E. Medland, Dale R. Nyholt, Jodie N. Painter, Brian P. McEvoy, Allan F. McRae, Gu Zhu, Scott D. Gordon, Manuel A.R. Ferreira, Margaret J. Wright, Anjali K. Henders, Megan J. Campbell, David L. Duffy, Narelle K. Hansell, Stuart Macgregor, Wendy S. Slutske, Andrew C. Heath, Grant W. Montgomery, Nicholas G. Martin

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

212 Scopus citations

Abstract

Hair morphology is highly differentiated between populations and among people of European ancestry. Whereas hair morphology in East Asian populations has been studied extensively, relatively little is known about the genetics of this trait in Europeans. We performed a genome-wide association scan for hair morphology (straight, wavy, curly) in three Australian samples of European descent. All three samples showed evidence of association implicating the Trichohyalin gene (TCHH), which is expressed in the developing inner root sheath of the hair follicle, and explaining ∼6% of variance (p = 1.5 × 10-31). These variants are at their highest frequency in Northern Europeans, paralleling the distribution of the straight-hair EDAR variant in Asian populations.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)750-755
Number of pages6
JournalAmerican journal of human genetics
Volume85
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 13 2009

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