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Scientists Stack Up New Genes For Height
An anonymous reader writes "An international team of researchers, including a number from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill schools of medicine and public health, have discovered hundreds of genes that influence human height. Their findings confirm that the combination of a large number of genes in any given individual, rather than a simple 'tall' gene or 'short' gene, helps to determine a person's stature. It also points the way to future studies exploring how these genes combine into biological pathways to impact human growth."
Could be worse (Consortium Of University Liberals Detecting Biological Entitities Which Organise Rare Systemic Enhancements)
There's lots of room for all sorts of other factors. These genes account for only 10% of the height difference:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100929132529.htm
This study wasn't designed to look for epigenetic factors. It was basically: line up a lot of people, measure 'em, and give 'em a quick gene scan. (Not a full sequencing, necessarily; it was a meta-study to get the maximum data, and they needed hundreds of thousands.) That genetic scan doesn't tell you anything epigenetic.
The rest is a lot of math. And in the end they accounted for only a small part of the overall variation. 10% is still interesting, but not nearly enough to merit the kind of headlines this gets.
Agreed. Especially since we can see plenty of species where the scaling has happened on individual limbs. Dinosaurs' short arms, fiddler crabs' long/large single arm, kangaroos' short arms and/or big legs, giraffe necks, etc...
Although a combination would be impressive; if there was a single scaling master gene, plus limb-/bone-leve adjustments, that would be a very flexible (no pun intended) setup, as good as one might set out to design.
Sure, and you probably should. Taller children require larger roasting pans, and sometimes even bigger ovens. You could instead do them on a spit over a fire, but if you need to scrunch them up on the axle of your spit (since they are taller), it's going to affect how evenly they cook.
Oh... for taller children. My bad.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I don't see the GATTACA connection here, other than a knee-jerk response to any DNA discoveries.
If we know what genes encode desirable traits, that is the first step towards genetically altering offspring to have those traits... ala Gattaca. This isn't about knowing who has the genes for tallness, but about the potential of altering those genes so that people who do not have altered genes are societally disadvantaged.
Like under the bar stools?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Perhaps his local Lollipop Guild Annual Charity Chili Cookoff?
Took me a bit of time to find, but here's the link to the actual research paper (requires nature subscription):
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature09410.html
From the abstract:
Our data explain approximately 10% of the phenotypic variation in height, and we estimate that unidentified common variants of similar effect sizes would increase this figure to approximately 16% of phenotypic variation (approximately 20% of heritable variation)
The introduction of the paper states that "80% of the variation [for height] within a given population is estimated to be attributable to additive genetic factors, but over 40 previously published variants explain less than 5% of the variance." While this paper pushes that to 16%, it's nowhere near the limit of what can be detected.
I find it interesting that they've got a sample size of around 100,000 individuals for this study (actually a meta-analysis of summary statistics from 46 GWAS of 133,653 individuals), but still claim a need for more individuals. I suspect that'll still be said when a study is done on 10 million individuals, or a billion.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
While I have no doubt it's true that a large number of genes contribute to height, it's very likely there are a handful of genes that have a significantly larger effect than the rest. It's a simple matter of statistics. If you have 100 genes that all have, more or less, the same small contribution, then there would be exceedingly few people who were over 6' and the distribution of heights would be most people very close to the same height and only a handful of outliers. You also wouldn't have unusual heights being very heritable (which they are). There must be just a few genes that have a much more significant effect than others.
No, I use a decent font.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.