Many of the features of a human face — for example, the size of the nose and width of face are caused by certain genetic variants.
Specific research describing the connection between genetics and facial features from some few managed to establish the exact relationship between a particular genome and property appearance. To solve this problem, the authors conducted a genome wide Association: between the 20 facial features 3118 of healthy Europeans and about a million single-nucleotide polymorphisms.
Scientists have discovered the genes for several facial features. So, the length of the nose associated with CHD8 and ZNF219, width — PAX1, the width of the face — PAX9, MIPOL1 and MAFB, the distance between the eyes — with HDAC8, GNAI3 and ALX3. In the future, the researchers intend to identify the genetic risk factors leading to such birth defects as cleft palate and cleft lip.
In 2013, biologists have discovered a regulatory sequence in DNA that are responsible for the formation of individual facial features in mammals, including humans. These elements belong to the class of enhancers — non-coding DNA fragments, which with the help of special proteins affect the activity of genes.
These genes may be located at a distance of tens of thousands of nucleotides from the enhancer in contact they come at the expense of villiany DNA.
