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Evaluation of facial hair-associated SNPs: a pilot study on male Pakistani Punjabi population

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Abstract

Variation in facial hair is one of the most conspicuous features of facial appearance, particularly in South Asia and Middle East countries. A genome-wide association study in Latin Americans has identified multiple genetic variants at distinct loci being associated with facial hair traits including eyebrow thickness, beard thickness, and monobrow. In this pilot study, we have evaluated 16 SNPs associated with facial hair traits in 58 male individuals from the Punjabi population of Pakistan. In our sample, rs365060 in EDAR and rs12597422 in FTO showed significant association with monobrow, rs6684877 in MACF1 showed significant association with eyebrow thickness, and two SNPs in LOC105379031 (rs9654415 and rs7702331) showed significant association with beard thickness. Our results also suggest that genetic association may vary between ethnic groups and geographic regions. Although more data are needed to validate our results, our findings are of value in forensic molecular photofitting research in Pakistan.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all volunteers who provided material and data for this project.

Funding

This study was financially supported by University of Health Sciences Lahore, Pakistan.

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Author notes

  1. Muhammad Jawad and Atif Adnan contributed equally and considered as first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology and Ethnology, Institute of Anthropology, School of Sociology and Anthropology, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China

    Atif Adnan & Chuan-Chao Wang

  2. Department of Forensic Sciences, University of Health Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan

    Muhammad Jawad, Rahat Abdul Rehman, Shahid Nazir & Allah Rakha

  3. Department of Forensic Sciences, College of Criminal Justice, Naif Arab University of Security Sciences, Riyadh, 11452, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Atif Adnan, S. A. M. Amer, Sibte Hadi & Fan Liu

  4. Department of Cell Biology and Genetics, Faculty of Science, University of Lagos, AkokaLagos, Yaba, Nigeria

    Oyenike. A. Adeyemo

  5. Key Laboratory of Genomic and Precision Medicine, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Fan Liu

Authors
  1. Muhammad Jawad
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  2. Atif Adnan
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  3. Rahat Abdul Rehman
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  4. Shahid Nazir
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  5. Oyenike. A. Adeyemo
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  9. Chuan-Chao Wang
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  10. Allah Rakha
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Contributions

A.R., A.A., and M.J. designed this study. M.J. and S.N. collected the samples. M.J., S.N., and A.A. conducted the experiment. A.A., A.R., M.J., SAM.A, S.H., OA.A., C.C.W, and F.L. analyzed the results. M.J. wrote the initial manuscript. A.A. and F.L. completed and modified the manuscript. All authors critically reviewed the manuscript and provided approval of the version to be published.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Atif Adnan, Chuan-Chao Wang or Allah Rakha.

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Informed consent and ethical approval

All participants gave their informed consent either orally (in case they could not write) or in writing after the study aims and procedures were carefully explained to them. The study was approved by the ethical review committee of the University of Health Sciences, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan, and in accordance with the standards of the Declaration of Helsinki 1964.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Jawad, M., Adnan, A., Rehman, R.A. et al. Evaluation of facial hair-associated SNPs: a pilot study on male Pakistani Punjabi population. Forensic Sci Med Pathol 19, 293–302 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-022-00515-z

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