Something nice for a Friday. Oxytocin, also known as the cuddle hormone, makes us feel good. It’s released during sex, pair bonding and breastfeeding, and our levels (and the dog’s levels) rise when we stroke our pets. The oxytocin gene may also make us more optimistic. Differences in our responses to oxytocin seem to affect how empathic we are – so if you are a nice person, it might be (at least a little bit) down to your oxytocin gene.
single nucleotide polymorphism archive.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a delayed development disorder, including social, communication and cognitive problems. ASD seems to have strong genetic links – the concordance rate of fraternal to identical twins is 10 to 1 – and is three to four times more common in boys than girls, which suggests a link to the X chromosome. Researchers in the USA have found an X-linked gene that may play a role in ASD risk.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is linked with diet and other lifestyle factors, but there is also an association with SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) variants in genes on chromosome 9, in the 9p21 region. In a paper published in PLoS Medicine, researchers have made a connection between diet and genetic risk, potentially suggesting that changing diet could mitigate the effects of ‘harmful’ gene variants.
Migraines affect 5-25% of women and 2-10% of men. Researchers found a genetic link to migraines in 2010, and have now found a further three gene variants linked to these debilitating headaches.
The Caucasus region covers the borders of Europe and Asia, bordered by Turkey, Iran and Russia. There is a huge diversity of language in this area, with the languages falling into three main groups. A team of researchers at the Research Centre for Medical Genetics, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, have looked at the languages in the North Caucasian group and spotted a link with the genetics of the population.
NordiCDB, the Nordic Control Database, is a collection of genome-wide association study (GWAS) SNP data from 6000 individuals with harmonized genotype information from Denmark, Estonia, Finland and Sweden.
I hadn’t thought about earwax being something that evolved… but researchers in Japan have isolated a nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) that determines ‘wet’ or ‘dry’ earwax in humans.
So… do you get your height from your dad? Or your mum? Are you as tall as your grandfather or as short as your sister? Researchers have concluded that it’s just not that simple!
Some genome news in brief:
* More salmon, please
* Bridging the gap
* Supporting genome stability
* Decoding ancient DNA
* Mother knows best?
A team of researchers led by Professor Brendan Loftus at University College Dublin have sequenced the genome of a single (unidentified) Irish male using nine DNA libraries to create a genome sequence with 11-fold coverage
