Face genes identified

16th September 2012

Researchers have identified five genes that determine the shape of the human face – a find that could lead to police identification sketches based solely on DNA evidence.

Monozygotic twins have almost identical faces, and siblings usually have more similar faces than unrelated people, implying that genes play a major role in the appearance of the human face. However, almost nothing is known about the genes responsible for facial morphology in humans.

A new study, reported in PLOS Genetics, used magnetic resonance images of heads, together with portrait photographs, to map facial landmarks, from which facial distances were estimated. The researchers then applied a genome-wide association (GWA) approach, with independent replication, to finding DNA variants involved in facial shapes in almost 10,000 individuals.

Three of the five genes identified have been implicated previously by other approaches in vertebrate craniofacial development and disease; of these three, one was reported to be involved in facial morphology in a GWA study on children published earlier this year. The remaining two genes potentially represent completely new players in the molecular networks governing facial development.

Professor Manfred Kayser from the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, leading author of the study: "These are exciting first results that mark the beginning of the genetic understanding of human facial morphology. Perhaps some time it will be possible to draw a phantom portrait of a person solely from his or her DNA left behind, which provides interesting applications such as in forensics. We already can predict from DNA certain eye and hair colours with quite high accuracies."

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