A twin study of skin reflectance
Abstract
Skin colour has been measured by reflectance spectrophotometry on 134 pairs of twins at three sites, forehead, forearm and upper arm, each at three wavelengths, 425, 545 and 685 nm. Tanning is measured most reliably at 685 nm and at this wavelength the heritability is high at the least exposed upper arm site, intermediate on the forearm, while on the forehead variation is entirely environmentally determined. The same gradient is observed, through less strikingly at 545 nm, but at 425 nm, where haemoglobin is reflecting most of the light, the degree of genetic determination is the same at all sites.
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None of the tanning status heritability estimates are significantly greater than 0.
“None of the tanning status h2 estimates, including pedigree-, IBD-, exome-, and SNP array-based estimates, are significantly greater than 0 (Table 1), consistent with previous observations that tanning status is largely environmentally determined by UV exposure (Clark et al., 1981; Nan et al., 2009).”
From An Unexpectedly Complex Architecture for Skin Pigmentation in Africans (2017) · cites this paper as Clark et al., 1981
Skin pigmentation is a polygenic quantitative trait with high heritability in humans.
“Epidemiological studies in humans show that skin pigmentation is a polygenic quantitative trait with high heritability, [8][9][10]”
From A Genomewide Association Study of Skin Pigmentation in a South Asian Population (2007) · cites this paper as [8]
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- Authors
- Clark, P., Stark, A. E., Walsh, R. J., Jardine, R., & Martin, N. G.
- Affiliations
- UNSW Sydney (AU)
- Australian National University (AU)
- Venue
- Annals of Human Biology
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 1981-01
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 529-541
- ISSN
- 0301-4460 (ISSN-L)
- 1464-5033
- OpenAlex
- W2160584494
- Cited by
- 55
- References
- 19
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 1 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 0.34
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Annals of Human Biology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Cell Biology › melanin and skin pigmentation
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Race, Genetics, and Society
- Keywords
- skin reflectance, skin colour, heritability, tanning, twins, genetic determination, environmental influences, skin pigmentation, body site differences
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Europe, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Models, Theoretical, Pregnancy, Skin Pigmentation, Spectrophotometry, Twins, Twins, Dizygotic, Twins, Monozygotic
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