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Key gene 'controls skin colour'

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jonolover Donating Member (155 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-16-05 02:26 PM
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Key gene 'controls skin colour'
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tallahasseedem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-16-05 02:34 PM
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1. I thought it was common knowledge that....
Edited on Fri Dec-16-05 02:34 PM by tallahasseedem
skin color is controlled by three alleles. Nevertheless, this is pretty cool.
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Geoff R. Casavant Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-16-05 04:05 PM
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2. It's better than that, TG
Alleles are different versions of the same gene, and I expect you are correct that there are three alleles (i.e., three variations of the same gene) that deal with skin color.

What makes this new discovery so important is that a gene can be of any length depending on the size of the protein it was meant to encode. So alleles of the same gene could differ in numerous places along the DNA strand that encodes them. The genes for skin color, though, differ in just one single spot along the gene. In other words, the line between black and white, biologically speaking, has just gotten as fine as it possibly could.

What could be cooler?
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