Saturday, November 12, 2022

A Mutation in the PAD13 Gene Can Cause Uncombable Hair

    


    The gene, PAD13, is involved with formation of the shaft of a hair follicle. It was found that mutations of this gene can cause abnormal hair shafts, causing different hair structure. They call this “uncombable hair syndrome”. People with this syndrome have very dry hair that sticks out. About 71% of cases involved a mutation in the PAD13 gene. The mutation causes the hair shaft to be ridged and collapsed as shown in the image on the left. While a normal hair shaft is smooth as shown in the image on the right. This condition is not found to be cause for health issues and normally improves as a person age.

    This article was very interesting. I would not have thought that dry hair could be due to a mutation. This article could be interesting for parents to see why their child’s hair is the way it is. There are so many genes in the human genome, it is interesting to see how they can influence small features of a person.

2 comments:

  1. I never knew that a mutation like this could affect a genotype to such extent like dry hair. I find it very intriguing that something like oily or dry hair can be a gene mutation.

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  2. Interesting! I also read this usually improves with age. I am looking forward to following up on this research.

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