Scientists Find 'Werewolf' Gene


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Scientists have discovered a genetic mutation responsible for a disorder that causes people to sprout thick hair on their faces and bodies.

Hypertrichosis, sometimes called "werewolf syndrome" is a very rare condition, with fewer than 100 cases documented worldwide. But researchers knew the disorder runs in families, and in 1995 they traced the approximate location of the mutation to a section of the X chromosome (one of the two sex chromosomes) in a Mexican family affected by hypertrichosis.

Men with the syndrome have hair covering their faces and eyelids, while women grow thick patches on their bodies. In March, a Thai girl with the condition got into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's hairiest child.

A man in China with congenital hypertrichosis helped researchers break the case. Xue Zhang, a professor of medical genetics at the Peking Union Medical College, tested the man and his family and found an extra chunk of genes on the X chromosome. The researchers then returned to the Mexican family and also found an extra gene chunk (which was different from that of the Chinese man) in the same location of their X chromosomes.

The extra DNA may switch on a hair-growth gene nearby, resulting in runaway furriness. The best bet for a culprit, wrote study researcher Pragna Patel of the University of Southern California, is a gene called SOX3, which is known to play a role in hair growth.

"If in fact the inserted sequences turn on a gene that can trigger hair growth, it may hold promise for treating baldness or hirsutism [excessive hair growth] in the future, especially if we could engineer ways to achieve this with drugs or other means," Patel said in a statement.

The study is detailed in the June 2 issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics.

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maybe they can cure baldness out of this somehow? but it stands to reason that we have wolf-related DNA in us, we're both evolved mammals that came up on the same planet.

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but it stands to reason that we have wolf-related DNA in us, we're both evolved mammals that came up on the same planet.

You are joking, right? xD This isn't actually from wolves.

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It's about damned time!

Now maybe better treatments than electrolysis, shaving or chemical/laser hair removal can be developed.

I agree. Enough with being barbarians.

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no, i wasn't kidding at all Nihilus, we share a lot of our DNA with wolves and all other mammals.

Now we know -- Neo is secretly a werewolf. :shiftyninja:

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It's about damned time!

Now maybe better treatments than electrolysis, shaving or chemical/laser hair removal can be developed.

Meh, make 'being hairy' cool again like it was in the 70s :D

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sweet the battle can begin between were's and vamps (just got to find the vamp gene first)

WE already found the Vamp gene, havent u seen men that go both ways hahaha. Now we just need to pit them together.

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hey Hum, no such secrets here...but i guess those guys are kinda cool, they're always so powerful. but why so angry? i mean, why can't they be nice? they are human under all that after all. oh yes, it's all a metaphore for the beast inside...yes, forgot that part.

EDIT: was talking about werewolves in fiction, not any people in real life with actual conditions.

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