Study suggests KIT ligand is responsible for blonde hair

Blonde Hair Gene Identified, written by Tia Ghose, states that blonde hair is a result of a mutation in a single gene sequence, the KIT ligand. So what exactly is the KIT ligand? The KIT ligand is a protein that binds to receptors throughout the body which affects the hair color of an individual and certain sections of the body. The KIT ligand affects everything from pigmentation of hair (skin color in fish), blood cells, nerve cells in the stomach, and sex cells.

How was this ligand discovered to affect blondes? The KIT ligand was first found to effect the coloring a species of fish. A study found that the change of one base pair in the KIT ligand resulted in the variation of pigmentation in the fish's color, which also relates to the variation of pigments in a natural blondes coloration of hair.

Overall, I thought this was a very interesting article, which answered many questions about the pigmentation of blonde hair. This article was very informative since I believed blonde hair was the result of several base pairs throughout the DNA only effecting pigmentation of hair. It was shocking to find that the ligand also affected blood, nerve, and sex cells.