Problems of Forensic Sciences 2009 Vol. 78 (LXXVIII) 175-183
THE SEARCH FOR GENETIC HEIGHT MARKERS FOR FORENSIC PURPOSES
Magdalena MARCIŃSKA, Wojciech BRANICKI
Institute of Forensic Research, Krakow, Poland
Streszczenie
Much effort in the field of forensic genetics in the future will undoubtedly be devoted to predicting physical characteristics. Significant progress towards forensic pigmentation prediction has been made recently and thus it is also interesting to enquire about the prospects for height prediction. Height is one of the most visible traits observed by witnesses, being a complex quantitative trait with strong heritability ranging according to various studies from 70 to 90%. Scientists have already searched for genes that account for normal variation of height in human populations. They have found several candidate genes, such as ESR, CYP-19 and VDR, thanks to observed mutations that cause rare pathological stature syndromes. It has been argued that the most promising approach to detecting common alleles with only a modest impact on the phenotype is large genome-wide association studies. Indeed, this powerful method has led to identification of many genes significantly associated with human adult height, including HMGA2, GDF5-UQCC, ZBTB38 and HHIP. In addition, these findings have been confirmed in several independent studies. It has been demonstrated that the discovered variation explains only a small fraction of the overall variation in height. Research results suggest that there are great number of additive genetic variants with small effect size that influence height in the general population. Furthermore, it seems that association studies for height should take into account differences in genetic variation not only within a population, but also between populations. We should be aware of the fact that detecting non-additive mechanisms, such as interactions between genes (epistasis), can be important for understanding biological regulation of human height. Finally, recent progress in studies on the role of epigenetics in complex traits suggests the necessity for not underestimating this factor in the biology of human height.
Słowa kluczowe
Forensic genetics; Adult height; Genome-wide association studies; Epistasis; Epigenetics.