Male Pattern Baldness Study Uncovers Potential Genetic Predictors
Third Party Content: genomeweb Feb 16, 2017 | staff reporter NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – A large genome-wide association study of male pattern baldness is fleshing out the collection of common variants linked to the trait, pointing to a potential avenue for future polygenic prediction tests. Researchers from the UK searched for common variants involved in baldness based on array-based genotyping information for more than 52,000 UK Biobank participants between the ages of 40 and 69 years old. Their findings , appearing online yesterday in PLOS Genetics , uncovered hundreds of variants on the autosomal chromosomes or X sex chromosome coinciding with male pattern baldness. With these data, the team took a crack at coming up with a variant-based tool for predicting baldness in a subset of the original participants. The approach appeared promising for predicting male pattern baldness in the population as a whole, though it has a way to go fo...