Genes are our everything! And, by the way, we owe them not only for all the good things, but also the not so good ones...
Scientists seriously studying the genome have discovered that hidden within it are three million “letters,” or chemical building blocks, that make up genetic material. Now geneticists are looking for an answer to one of the super-important questions: which genes are responsible for serious diseases, musical hearing and athletic achievements? And we have already managed to find out something.
Eye color
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Dark eye colors such as brown and black are dominant, while light eye colors such as blue are recessive. Typically, a child inherits the dominant eye color of his parents. So, for example, if dad has brown eyes and mom has blue eyes, then the child will most likely be brown-eyed. But this doesn't always happen. If the father has a recessive eye color, such as blue or green, the child is more likely to inherit the father's eye color.
Musical talent
To become an outstanding pianist, guitarist, etc., long, many years of practical training is not at all the main thing. This requires the presence of the necessary genes in the DNA.
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According to a study conducted by a Swedish neuroscientist, identical twins demonstrate equal musical abilities regardless of how much practice they each had. Thus, the data embedded in the genetic code are much more important for the manifestation of musical talent than practical training.
But, of course, having the right gene does not eliminate the need to practice and hone your skills. Without mastering a musical instrument, even with a supergene you will not be able to achieve success.
Child's height
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A child's height is influenced by the genes of both parents, but the father plays a big role in how tall or short the child will be. If the father is tall, then the children will also be tall, maybe not as tall as the father, if the mother is short, but still. There is a method that helps calculate the approximate height of a child. To do this, print the average of the mother's and father's heights (mother's height + father's height): 2, and then add 5 cm if you have a boy, or subtract 5 cm if you have a girl.
Passion for travel
Some people quietly spend their entire lives without leaving their homes, even for vacations. Others strive to travel around the entire globe. What kind of interest there will be in traveling, and whether there will be one at all, depends on a person’s DNA.
Those who like to travel the world and discover new corners of the planet have a gene in their code with a certain mutation associated with curiosity and anxiety. Studies have shown that people with such a mutated gene have an adventurous spirit and are open to everything new.
Child's weight
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Weight is largely determined by genetics, and there is a connection between the weight of parents, especially the father, and the weight of children as they grow up. Interestingly, the father's weight can influence the baby's birth weight. So, if the father's genes are expressed during pregnancy and intrauterine development of the child, then the mother's genes may be suppressed to some extent.
Driving abilities
Anyone who is regularly fined for violating traffic rules can “thank” their parents. Driving skills are directly linked to DNA.
The “driver” gene was discovered in a study conducted by Californian neuroscientists. The gene exists in two versions - the owners of one perform well even on problem sections of the road and difficult routes, while others manage to “distinguish themselves” even on a good highway.
It is worth noting that this gene affects not only driving skills. People with the “bad driver” gene are, in principle, less capable than those with the “good driver” gene at learning new skills, remembering information, and adjusting their actions based on mistakes made.
Hair
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As with eyes, dominant and recessive genes have a big impact on hair color. Dark hair is dominant, and if your dad has dark hair, you'll likely have dark hair too. Moreover, the father's genes play a decisive role in what the child's hair texture will be. If the father has curly hair, it is unlikely that the child will have straight hair.
Geneticists have revealed whether parents' bad habits are actually passed on to children.
Since school days, we have known Darwin's theory of evolution, according to which all living beings inherit the characteristics of their parents, recorded in genes. At the same time, attempts are regularly made to find other possible ways of transmitting hereditary information. Thus, the other day it became known that Canadian biologists from McGill University in Montreal, after conducting a series of experiments on mice, came to the conclusion that the health of the offspring can be influenced not only by the genes of the parents. An important role is also played by special proteins that “pack” the DNA helix, keeping it in a folded state. And the state of these proteins, in turn, depends on the so-called epigenetic marks associated with the activity of certain genes in the parents of the mice.
Comments on this scientific work, which appeared in some media, are worthy of a Nobel Prize for Canadians. Like, in fact, the results of experiments indicate that inheritance occurs not only through genes, and even bad habits of parents can easily be passed on to offspring. After all, smoking and alcoholism, although they do not lead to profound changes in DNA, do affect the activity of genes, that is, they change those same epigenetic marks.
“Of course, smoking and abusing alcohol are dangerous, but it is unscientific to believe that these bad habits themselves can be inherited and contribute to alcoholism in a child,” emphasizes Irina Zhegulina, a geneticist at the Atlas biomedical holding . — Moreover, such a provocative conclusion does not follow from the experiments of Canadian scientists.
At the same time, there is already evidence that people’s genes contain not only a predisposition to diseases, but also, say, an increased tendency to gambling behavior (“adventurism gene”), to various addictions, for example, to sweets, to frequent snacking. This is due, among other things, to the peculiarities of the functioning of the receptors of the “reward hormone” dopamine, which is determined genetically.
However, genetics influences a child’s behavior and health in real life, as a rule, by no more than 20-25% (except for cases of rare genetic diseases and chromosomal syndromes that are caused by faults in genes). The rest of the contribution comes from environment, upbringing, ecology, and lifestyle. “With the help of a genetic test, now everyone can find out their degree of predisposition to certain habits and behavioral characteristics,” explains Irina Zhegulina. “But this will only be a fraction of the probability, which you can either increase or decrease by changing your lifestyle and environment.”
In short, scientific evidence still suggests that genetics is not an excuse on which to blame your bad habits. Yes, the color of the child’s eyes and hair will depend 100% on the parents, but the behavior of the heirs depends much more on upbringing, environment in the family, school, etc.
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“Bad habits disrupt the normal process of DNA methylation, that is, maintaining epigenetic marks (see above) in a stable state,” explains Irina Zhegulina. — As a result, various mutations may occur or the work of oncogenes that are normally noticed, i.e., do not work, is activated.
Also, bad habits can affect DNA indirectly, forming so-called DNA adducts. These are substances that, by binding to a DNA molecule, can cause mutations. Such mutations usually occur in dividing cells (intestinal epithelium, lungs, etc.), which can lead to the development of cancer. There are also cases when the action of a strong DNA-damaging factor occurs during the early development of the embryo or the division of germ cells. Then congenital malformations or chromosomal syndromes that are currently incurable may occur.
Anna DOBRYUKHA, Komsomolskaya Pravda
Dental problems
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Unfortunately or fortunately, the structure of teeth, as well as the problems associated with them, is a hereditary trait. If the father had bad teeth, then the child will probably also have to face problems. Did you know that there is a gene responsible for the appearance of gaps between teeth? If your father had a gap in his teeth, don't be surprised if you inherit one.
Addiction
One of the most terrible and dangerous habits that can ruin your life. Statistics have shown that there are no former drug addicts, and besides, the use of toxic substances can have a detrimental effect on the future. If parents had such a problem, then this will naturally affect the future generation.
At the genetic level, all the consequences of using illegal substances are transferred - sleep disturbances, mental problems and developmental arrest. In addition to all this, there is a high probability that the child may grow up to be a drug addict, and this undoubtedly entails irreversible consequences.
Risk appetite
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If a father likes to take risks, then this can leave an imprint on the personality of future children. It is believed that a person's personality is to some extent predetermined from birth. For example, there is a gene that is responsible for the search for novelty and inclines a person to risky behavior. A person who is prone to adventure most likely inherited this trait from his father.
No. 8. Symptoms of stress
Every person has to deal with many stressful situations in life, and how he will experience and cope with them largely depends on his genetics. Research by scientists aimed at studying the effect of stress on the hippocampus, located in the human brain, has shown that changes in its size largely depend on the number of certain genes in the body. They are risk genes, the excess of which provokes a decrease in the volume of the hippocampus and, consequently, reduces a person’s ability to cope with stressful situations.
What about the level of intelligence? Let's look into this issue.
1. The level of intelligence from a father to his male child (son), unfortunately, is not transmitted. To put it simply, if the father is a brilliant person, then his son is guaranteed not to inherit his wonderful genes.
2. Idiocy is not transmitted from a father to his male child (son) (fortunately). If the father does not shine, as they say, with intelligence, then his son will be different in terms of mental development. And this is good.
3. The level of intelligence from the father can be genetically inherited only by a female child (daughter). But only half.
4. A male child can inherit the level of intelligence only from his mother, which she inherited from her own father.
5. The female child (daughter) of a genius will be exactly 50% as smart as her own father, but her son will be a genius. If the father is stupid, then the daughter will be half as stupid as her father.
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6. This is why there are as few female geniuses as there are complete idiots. But there are quite a lot of brilliant men and stupid men.
A little about intelligence:
- Intelligence is not passed on from father to son. That is, if the father is a genius, then his son will 100% not inherit these genes.
- Idiocy is not passed on from father to son. If the father is a complete idiot, then his son will not be the same idiot (here nature acted wisely).
- Intelligence can only be passed on from a father to a daughter. And only half.
- A man can inherit intelligence only from his mother, which she, in turn, inherited from her father.
- The daughters of geniuses will be exactly half as smart as their fathers, but their sons will be geniuses. If their father is stupid, then the daughters will be exactly half as stupid as their fathers.
- Therefore, there are almost no women of genius, just as there are no 100% idiot women. But there are a lot of men who are geniuses and men who are stupid. Hence the generation of unsuccessful drunkards, single mothers, as well as Nobel laureates (almost all men).
Intelligence test
Another work was carried out by Scottish scientists from Glasgow. Over the years, they have interviewed more than 12 thousand young people aged 14 to 22 every year.
Scientists took various factors into account. They paid attention to education, race, economic status.
As a result, it was found that mothers had a decisive influence on the transmission of intelligence to the child. In most cases, the IQ of young people differed, on average, by 15 points from the result of their mothers.
What is inherited from mother to son?
8 diseases that are transmitted from mother to child genetically
Genetic diseases: list
Often our children are like us like two peas in a pod. It is very funny to see your gestures, habits, habits, external similarity and character traits in a child. But, unfortunately, various health problems can also be transmitted from parents to children. Therefore, if you know your weaknesses, it is easier for you to pay attention to your child’s symptoms and prevent illness in the early stages.
Allergies and asthma. These diseases are transmitted from mother to child. Although the scale of the problem can be completely different. For example, a woman with severe asthma may give birth to a baby prone to food allergies. But, unfortunately, this also works in the opposite direction: the mother may only have a mild allergy to plant pollen or animal dander, but the child may be diagnosed with asthma.
Cardiovascular diseases. They are inherited not so often - in about 20% of cases. And yet, if the mother had a heart attack or other heart problems, the daughter also needs to pay special attention to this organ and treat it with care.
Mental illnesses. Predisposition to depression depends on the mother by 10-30%. This happens due to the fact that there is a group of genes that is responsible for the production of the happiness hormone in the body - serotonin. But schizophrenia, as experts say, is more often transmitted indirectly - from mother to son and from father to daughter.
Oncological diseases. Unfortunately, the likelihood of a child becoming ill increases if the mother had cancer. This is explained by the fact that cancer is associated with gene mutations. First of all, the children of those mothers who were diagnosed with cancer at an early age are at risk.
Headaches and migraines. It turns out that there is a gene that triggers migraines. And if a mother suffers from headaches, with a 70-80% probability this illness will manifest itself in the child.
Early menopause. Usually it occurs after the age of 50, but there are cases when menopause occurs immediately after 40. As many as 4 genes are responsible for this process, so if the mother had an early menopause, then in 70-80% the daughter expects the same. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to correct this process, since the number of eggs is determined by us from birth.
Tendency to corpulence. Scientists say: heredity plays a big role in this case. If the parents are plump, then the child’s risk of gaining weight increases by 70%. Moreover, this tendency is passed on from father to son and from mother to daughter. But there is another opinion that in a family of overweight parents, children gain excess weight due to improper diet, as a result of which the children’s metabolism is disrupted at an early age. In general, if the whole family switches to healthy foods, it will be much easier to normalize weight.
Physical form. The ability to train the body and pump up muscles is also inherited. More often than not, outstanding athletes are born into sports families. Although this is also related to lifestyle, nutrition, and active leisure habits. Therefore, by making our choice in favor of a healthy lifestyle, we provide an invaluable service not only to our children, but also to our grandchildren. Take care of yourself and your loved ones!
Kindness and sympathy
The ability to empathize and simply kindness are predetermined by the genetic code. A specific gene is responsible for these qualities. It exists in three versions, each of which determines exactly how kind and compassionate a person can be towards others. Conventionally, variants of this gene can be designated as XX, XY and YY.
If a child received X from both parents, his kindness gene is XX. This is the highest degree of ability to empathize. People with the gene of kindness of the YY species are almost completely devoid of empathy; they are the most cynical and cruel group. As you might guess, the XY gene variant is average - such people are changeable.
Important differences between mom and dad in modern genetics
Albrecht Durer, “Adam and Eve”, engraving Illustration: Wikipedia Nowadays, any discussion about the difference between men and women smacks of sexism. If you are a non-conflict person by nature, it is easier for you to assume that there are no such differences at all. The exception is, perhaps, brief moments of direct procreation activity, although even here the range of stores for adults almost equalizes all possibilities. In some families, a child now even has two mothers and no father, or vice versa. For now, this can only be expressed in a social and not a biological sense, but, probably, very soon scientists will figure out how to make sperm and oocytes from somatic cells. Then any two citizens will be able to have a child by consent and not worry about who is who.
It seems that there are no fundamental difficulties here, because from the point of view of genetics, the contributions of mom and dad are completely symmetrical. There are exactly 23 chromosomes in the sperm and oocyte (let’s forget about the mitochondrial genome for a moment, no one is interested in it except crazy ethnogeneticists). And the fact that one of the cells is large and round, and the other is small and with a tail, is irrelevant for a geneticist.
All these extremely reasonable considerations are called into question by an article by Icelandic geneticists published last week in Science. Why are the geneticists Icelandic? More on this below. The main thing is that, if you believe them, what we inherit from mom and dad is very different. We will have to tell this difficult story in order, although we do not intend to drag it out too much: anyone who finds it a little more interesting than the author expects can find out about everything from the popular retelling in Science, or even from the original article.
Unisex history
Let us first recall what everyone should be taught at school. Each of your parents has a double set of chromosomes: the one they got from your grandmother and the one they got from your grandfather. In almost all parental cells, the grandmother and grandfather chromosomes exist independently. However, when the germ cells mature, the corresponding chromosomes of the grandparents find each other and are connected along their entire length. Then they exchange pieces. All this is called "meiosis".
Then these new patchwork chromosomes, in which it is no longer clear where is grandmother’s goodness and where is grandfather’s, independently disperse to the daughter cells, so that as a result, in each sex cell, instead of a double set of chromosomes, there is a single set. After this, the parent sex cells are ready to fuse and give rise to you. In your case, your mother’s and father’s chromosomes will also exist separately from each other until the time for meiosis comes again.
Something else about exchanges between chromosomes that is not taught in school. Exchanges are different. Sometimes chromosomes simply break and join together crosswise. And sometimes difficulties arise: multiple exchanges in a small area, or even such a situation that in some place the grandmother’s chromosome seems to completely turn into the grandfather’s. This kind of confusion is called “complex crossovers.” By the way, we tried to tell the reader about these things - some of them are called “gene conversion” - in an entertaining way some time ago. There, another reader became famous for not being able to read to the end. History has preserved his name: Anton Gorelkin, deputy of the State Duma of the 7th convocation.
And one more important, although self-evident, point. Chromosomes can mutate. A certain number of mutations were inherited by mom and dad from their grandparents, but mutations continued to accumulate even after that. Everything that happened in the cells of the parents’ guts, brain or skin does not concern you as a whole. But the mutations accumulated by each parent in the line of their germ cells may well pass on to you and become yours. Are there many of them? According to modern estimates, more than fifty for the entire genome. You are the first person on the planet to carry these mutations in your genome, but not the last: you will pass them on to your children.
So far everything is symmetrical: mom and dad can be swapped and nothing will change. But now the nuances begin.
Dad's story
When a person is told that meiosis occurs in him, very few people ask the question when it occurs and, most importantly, where. Meanwhile, for a man, the answer is quite simple: where the sperm mature, and let’s not point a finger there. It all starts at the age of 10–12 and continues as long as it can. It takes about two months for a mature tailed sperm to turn from an unremarkable diploid spermatogonia cell, and meiosis itself proceeds much faster. The chromosomes of the grandfather and grandmother exchanged pieces, went their separate ways, and it was all done.
Meanwhile, the cells that give rise to spermatogonia (ingeniously called “spermatogonia A”) continue to divide throughout life. The older a man is, the more divisions behind each of his sperm and the more mutations, apparently, should accumulate in him. This is in theory. More on the practice below.
Mom's story
You shouldn’t discuss with a woman where and when meiosis occurs, especially when meeting her for the first time. And not because it is indecent (everything is surprisingly fine with this, because it happens in the stomach), but because it is too difficult.
The fact is that all mother’s meioses begin at the moment when mother is sitting in grandmother’s stomach. Even then it becomes known exactly how many eggs the expectant mother will produce during her life, and in her subsequent life nothing will be added to them. There, in grandmother's uterus and in what will later become mother's ovaries, grandmother and grandfather's chromosomes find each other and unite to exchange sections and properly shuffle genes.
However, at this moment the “stop” command sounds. Nothing happens beyond this point. This is called meiotic arrest (more precisely, the first arrest, because then there will be a second one, which is not related to our story). In this intermediate state, future eggs are stuck for a long time - until it is their turn to mature before the next ovulation. Only then the chromosomes - no longer grandmothers and grandfathers, but shuffled ones - diverge forever. And the egg becomes finally haploid only after the sperm penetrates it - this, by the way, is the lifting of the second arrest.
Stupid logic dictates that since the egg undergoes much fewer divisions than the sperm, then fewer mutations should accumulate in it. But since the chromosomes of the grandparents were together for so long, they could have time to mix better with each other. Stupid logic, however, would be nice to test with experiments. Now we finally know enough gender details to move on to an account of the experiments themselves.
What we learned in Iceland
Iceland is a small country with only 300,000 people. However, this is a fairly advanced country, and more than half of its population has ordered a full genome analysis. Thus, geneticists had invaluable material in their hands: they were able to compare in detail the chromosomes of many grandparents, mothers and fathers, as well as their children. The study in question compared the genomes of 150,000 people. This is a huge material that no one could even dream of 10 years ago.
The first data were published a couple of years ago. Then the researchers dealt with “complex crossovers.” It turned out that the exchanges between the grandmother and grandfather chromosomes that took place in the father’s body are very different from the mother’s. The mother experiences significantly more of these complex events; they involve longer sections of chromosomes. Moreover, this number also increases noticeably with a woman’s age.
Here we, of course, can again apply our stupid logic and say: “No wonder: since in the mother’s body the grandmother and grandfather’s chromosomes remain together for decades, they have much more time to shuffle among themselves in a bizarre way.” But we can say with an important look that science knows nothing about this, but now the final result is known: recombination between maternal grandparents is much more bizarre than paternal. In other words, you are more likely to inherit a large, intact piece of your daddy's genome, with all its quirks and quirks encoded in that piece, than you are to inherit a similar piece from your mommy-daddy. On my mother’s side, everything will be more complicated and confusing.
But this is from that old article, and in the new one the authors dealt with something else: mutations that arose in one generation. It turned out that these mutations gravitate very strongly towards the very points where the grandmother's and grandfather's chromosomes exchanged sections. How strong? At a distance of up to 1000 letter-nucleotides from the point of chromosomal exchange, the occurrence of a mutation is 50 times more likely than the genome average.
Well, since we already know that the number and complexity of crossovers in mothers increases with age, the number of mutations should also increase. Namely, every year the mother lives adds 0.38 new mutations to the child (remember that all these years nothing seems to happen to the eggs: they are in a state of arrest, and it’s difficult for us to judge how the grandmother and grandfather’s chromosomes negotiate in them ). What about dad? Things are getting worse with dad: every year of dad’s life there are 1.39 new mutations in the baby. Which is not surprising, since dad's cells are dividing.
Thus, from the father (and especially, as they say, “the old one”) our baby will receive a coarsely chopped mixture of grandfather’s and grandmother’s chromosomes, spoiled by mutations. From my mother - a much more whimsical, but, on the other hand, better preserved cocktail of genes. No symmetry at the level of basic genetics.
Fortunately, no dense ignoramus could interpret this result in the sense that a man - or, conversely, a woman - is more important in the transfer of genes from ancestors to descendants. Scientists, in principle, could discover something like this. In general, they can reveal anything, and then we have to explain to the general reader, clarify that no one here is sexist, but that’s just the way nature works. The main thing for us is that in order not to happen like with James Watson, one scandal is enough for geneticists for this year.
And the politically correct conclusion is that immediately, in one fell swoop, it was possible to find out how complex the genetic diversity of humanity is formed. We must thank for this, firstly, the inquisitive Icelanders, who en masse deciphered their own genomes. And, secondly, geneticists who made possible research that no one could have thought of just recently. There, in these Icelandic data, there are probably many more instructive facts hidden; researchers have only just begun to understand them, but have already learned so much. When we find out something else, we will certainly tell you.
Popularity
Whether a person will become the soul of a large company or whether he will have no friends at all depends on the presence in the DNA of the so-called popularity gene, which, among other things, is inherited from parents to children.
The popularity gene literally forces a person to behave in a certain way, namely in such a way as to attract everyone around him and gain their approval and even admiration.
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