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Variation at Genes Influencing Facial Morphology Are Not Associated with Developmental Imprecision in Human Faces

Facial asymmetries are commonly used as a proxy for human developmental imprecision resulting from inbreeding, and thus reduced genetic heterozygosity. Several environmental factors influence human facial asymmetry (e.g., health care, parasites), but the generalizability of findings on genetic stres...

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Autores principales: Windhager, Sonja, Schaschl, Helmut, Schaefer, Katrin, Mitteroecker, Philipp, Huber, Susanne, Wallner, Bernard, Fieder, Martin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4051657/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24914781
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0099009
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author Windhager, Sonja
Schaschl, Helmut
Schaefer, Katrin
Mitteroecker, Philipp
Huber, Susanne
Wallner, Bernard
Fieder, Martin
author_facet Windhager, Sonja
Schaschl, Helmut
Schaefer, Katrin
Mitteroecker, Philipp
Huber, Susanne
Wallner, Bernard
Fieder, Martin
author_sort Windhager, Sonja
collection PubMed
description Facial asymmetries are commonly used as a proxy for human developmental imprecision resulting from inbreeding, and thus reduced genetic heterozygosity. Several environmental factors influence human facial asymmetry (e.g., health care, parasites), but the generalizability of findings on genetic stressors has been limited in humans by sample characteristics (island populations, endogamy) and indirect genetic assessment (inference from pedigrees). In a sample of 3215 adult humans from the Rotterdam Study, we therefore studied the relationship of facial asymmetry, estimated from nine mid-facial landmarks, with genetic variation at 102 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) loci recently associated with facial shape variation. We further tested whether the degree of individual heterozygosity is negatively correlated with facial asymmetry. An ANOVA tree regression did not identify any SNP relating to either fluctuating asymmetry or total asymmetry. In a general linear model, only age and sex—but neither heterozygosity nor any SNP previously reported to covary with facial shape—was significantly related to total or fluctuating asymmetry of the midface. Our study does not corroborate the common assumption in evolutionary and behavioral biology that morphological asymmetries reflect heterozygosity. Our results, however, may be affected by a relatively small degree of inbreeding, a relatively stable environment, and an advanced age in the Rotterdam sample. Further large-scale genetic studies, including gene expression studies, are necessary to validate the genetic and developmental origin of morphological asymmetries.
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spelling pubmed-40516572014-06-18 Variation at Genes Influencing Facial Morphology Are Not Associated with Developmental Imprecision in Human Faces Windhager, Sonja Schaschl, Helmut Schaefer, Katrin Mitteroecker, Philipp Huber, Susanne Wallner, Bernard Fieder, Martin PLoS One Research Article Facial asymmetries are commonly used as a proxy for human developmental imprecision resulting from inbreeding, and thus reduced genetic heterozygosity. Several environmental factors influence human facial asymmetry (e.g., health care, parasites), but the generalizability of findings on genetic stressors has been limited in humans by sample characteristics (island populations, endogamy) and indirect genetic assessment (inference from pedigrees). In a sample of 3215 adult humans from the Rotterdam Study, we therefore studied the relationship of facial asymmetry, estimated from nine mid-facial landmarks, with genetic variation at 102 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) loci recently associated with facial shape variation. We further tested whether the degree of individual heterozygosity is negatively correlated with facial asymmetry. An ANOVA tree regression did not identify any SNP relating to either fluctuating asymmetry or total asymmetry. In a general linear model, only age and sex—but neither heterozygosity nor any SNP previously reported to covary with facial shape—was significantly related to total or fluctuating asymmetry of the midface. Our study does not corroborate the common assumption in evolutionary and behavioral biology that morphological asymmetries reflect heterozygosity. Our results, however, may be affected by a relatively small degree of inbreeding, a relatively stable environment, and an advanced age in the Rotterdam sample. Further large-scale genetic studies, including gene expression studies, are necessary to validate the genetic and developmental origin of morphological asymmetries. Public Library of Science 2014-06-10 /pmc/articles/PMC4051657/ /pubmed/24914781 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0099009 Text en © 2014 Windhager et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Windhager, Sonja
Schaschl, Helmut
Schaefer, Katrin
Mitteroecker, Philipp
Huber, Susanne
Wallner, Bernard
Fieder, Martin
Variation at Genes Influencing Facial Morphology Are Not Associated with Developmental Imprecision in Human Faces
title Variation at Genes Influencing Facial Morphology Are Not Associated with Developmental Imprecision in Human Faces
title_full Variation at Genes Influencing Facial Morphology Are Not Associated with Developmental Imprecision in Human Faces
title_fullStr Variation at Genes Influencing Facial Morphology Are Not Associated with Developmental Imprecision in Human Faces
title_full_unstemmed Variation at Genes Influencing Facial Morphology Are Not Associated with Developmental Imprecision in Human Faces
title_short Variation at Genes Influencing Facial Morphology Are Not Associated with Developmental Imprecision in Human Faces
title_sort variation at genes influencing facial morphology are not associated with developmental imprecision in human faces
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4051657/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24914781
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0099009
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