Scientists unravel the relation between Human height and complicated gene combinations

Currently I am studying genes and DNA (gene regulation and expression, DNA replication, damage and repair), and I searched for news on that area that might interest you. As I said in my first blog post, you will be aware of latest news and discoveries in biology.

I have found one news article on reuters.com about one study of height which makes our understanding of the relationship between height and genetics more clear. This study is considered to be largest ever since, genome information of over a quarter million persons was analyzed to identify about 700 genetic variations and more than 400 genome regions relating to human height.

In this post I am going to make you familiar with this study and explain why this study is important.

Everybody knows that the height is determined by genes and is inherited from parents. Like, if your father is tall than mostly you are probably going to be tall. However, understanding the whole concept of genetics at the background of it is a bit challenging. For hundreds of years scientists were studying human height by measuring its average, because it is a good model for studying the genetics of diseases. For example, they have estimated that the average height of men has risen by 11cm since 1870 year. 

This study found that height is closely related to inherited DNA as long as 80 percent of height variation among the population is due to DNA. The study was held by the Genetic Investigation of Anthropometric Traits (GIANT) international Consortium. They analyzed the information from the genomes of 253,287 people. Approximately 2 million common genetic variations were checked and found to appear in at least 5 % of their samples. They identified 697 single variations, located in 424 gene regions to be related to height.

You can find their report in the journal Nature Genetics .

DNA sequence variation of different levels explains the quantity of variations in that picture.

Overall, they have found that the genetic variations, the regions of DNA (genes) that vary from person to person account for 80% of influence to human height. Other 20% are given to nutrition with other environmental factors. This means that you can increase your height maximum by only 20% because 80% of height depends on genetic component (the code). People have become taller on average in the last century owing to positive factors such as improved nutrition.

The majority of the genes identified are likely to be essential regulators of skeletal growth, but their contribution was not known until now. Some genes can be liable for unexplained syndromes of abnormal skeletal growth, particularly in children.

The study helps to find out what has real impact in the treatment of disorders that may be influenced by height. These are diseases such as osteoporosis, cancer, or heart disease, which are caused by the combined effect of many genes.

Some of these have been associated with collagen, structural component of bone and with part of cartilage called chondroitin sulfate, and the growth plate area of ​​growing tissue near the ends of the long bones of the body.

Nevertheless, some of the newly discovered genes have no known function still in the regulation of height, but are promising directions for future research.

To conclude, the understanding the genetics of height, will help us to understand how the genetics of human disease work.

Reference list:

"Defining the role of common variation in the genomic and biological architecture of adult human height." nature.com. http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ng.3097.html (accessed October 7, 2014).

"Height Is Determined By Complicated Gene Combinations." Diabetes Insider. http://diabetesinsider.com/height-determined-complicated-gene-combinations/35678 (accessed October 7, 2014).

"Scientists discover nearly 700 new genetic variations that determine height." Zee News. http://zeenews.india.com/news/health/health-news/scientists-discover-nearly-700-new-genetic-variations-that-determine-height_1480555.html (accessed October 7, 2014).

"Tall tale: scientists unravel the genetics of human height." | Reuters. http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/10/05/science-height-idINL2N0RY1YG20141005 (accessed October 7, 2014).