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Researchers isolate baldness gene

13/10/2008

UK researchers say they have identified two genetic variants in white men that together produce a sevenfold increase in the risk of male pattern baldness.

Researchers at McGill University, King's College London and GlaxoSmithKline says they have identified two genetic variants in white men that together produce a sevenfold increase in the risk of male pattern baldness.

About a third of all men are affected by baldness by the age of 45, the effects of which are considerable: consumer spending on hair transplantation in the United States alone exceeded $115 million in 2007, while global revenues for medical therapy for baldness recently went beyond $405 million.

Male pattern baldness is the most common form of baldness, where hair is lost in a well-defined pattern beginning above both temples, and results in a distinctive M-shaped hairline. Estimates suggest more than 80 per cent of cases are hereditary.

Researchers conducted a study of 1,125 men who had been assessed for male pattern baldness. They found two previously unknown genetic variants on chromosome 20 that substantially increased the risk of male pattern baldness. They then confirmed these findings in an additional 1,650 men.

Though the researchers consider their discovery to be a scientific breakthrough, they caution that it does not mean a treatment or cure for male pattern baldness is imminent.

But Dr Tim Spector, of King's College London and director of the TwinsUK cohort study said: "Early prediction before hair loss starts may lead to some interesting therapies that are more effective than treating late stage hair loss."


Researchers have long been aware of a genetic variant on the X chromosome that was linked to male pattern baldness, Dr Brent Richards of McGill University added.

"That's where the idea that baldness is inherited from the mother's side of the family comes from," he said.

"However it's been long recognised that that there must be several genes causing male pattern baldness. Until now, no one could identify those other genes. If you have both the risk variants we discovered on chromosome 20 and the unrelated known variant on the X chromosome, your risk of becoming bald increases sevenfold.

"What's startling is that one in seven men have both of those risk variants. That's 14 per cent of the total population!"

The full report can be found in the latest edition of the Nature Genetics journal.