Researchers have identified a fifth of the genetic factors that lead to height variations among adults.
The study more than doubled the amount of known genome regions that influence height, the University of Exeter reported. The study, conducted by the GIANT consortium, is the largest conducted of its kind.
"It's common knowledge that people born to tall parents are more likely to be tall themselves. Most of this is down to the variations in our DNA sequence that we inherit from our parents - the different versions of all our genes," said Professor Tim Frayling of the University of Exeter Medical School.
Researchers have now identified more than 700 genetic variants involved in height.
"This goes a long way towards fulfilling a scientific curiosity that could have real impact in the treatment of diseases that can be influenced by height, such as osteoporosis, cancer or heart disease. It also a step forward towards a test that may reassure parents worried that their child is not growing as well as they'd hoped - most of these children have probably simply inherited a big batch of 'short genes,'" Frayling said.
The team made its findings by looking at genetic data on 253,288 individuals of European ancestry. Humans have tended to grow taller of the past few generations due to improved nutrition, but more than 80 percent of an individuals' "tallness factor" is believed to be linked to genetics. Advances in technology have allowed scientists to identify genetic influence in greater detail, and in the future we could gain even greater insight into how our genes make us who we are.
"When you double the sample size and increase your statistical power, you can make new discoveries. Our results [prioritize] many genes and pathways as important in skeletal growth during childhood. Without a highly collaborative model, there's no way we could get this work done. We can now explain about 20 percent of the heritability of height, up from about 12 percent where we were before," said Dr. Joel Hirschhorn of Boston Children's Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; he is the leader of the GIANT Consortium and co-senior investigator on the study.
The study, partially funded by the Wellcome Trust, involved more than 450 experts from more than 300 institutions in Australia, the U.S. and several European countries. It was published Oct. 6 in the journal Nature Genetics.
