It is the gene that turned George Clooney into a silver fox and meant that Jennifer Lopez spent her 20s going on secret trips to hair salons. Its discovery might just mean that one day none of us need go grey again.
British scientists have identified the first “grey gene”, a genetic variation responsible for premature silver hair.
In the research 6,600 people had their genome analysed as the scientists sought to investigate how DNA determines our hair. By seeing how hair types from monobrows to bushy beards correlated with different genes, the researchers identified one, IRF4, that was linked to going grey early in life.
While some people, such as Clooney, 54, embrace going grey, many seek to cover it up. Lopez admitted that she began to go grey aged 23 and spent a fortune on hiding it.
The researchers behind yesterday’s discovery, announced in the journal Nature Communications, said it gave the first hints as to how we could combat this sign of ageing.
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“Now that we have a gene to chase, we can start to design experiments,” said Des Tobin, of the University of Bradford, said. By understanding how the gene is changing what goes on in hair follicles, we may be able to mitigate its effects in a way that could even help those going grey later in life.
“We can start to see what we need to replace in the follicle, to offset the negative impact and compensate for what is being lost,” he said. Even so, he cautioned that developing a way to prevent grey hair was likely take at least ten years. “It’s not likely this will be a silver bullet,” he said.
The discovery came as part of a wider study into the genetic basis for hair traits such as colour, baldness and eyebrow thickness. A possible application for the work will be investigating crime scenes: the scientists hope that by associating physical characteristics with particular genes police will be able to build up profiles of likely criminals using the DNA they leave behind.
Grey hair is believed to be 30 per cent determined by genes and the rest by environmental factors.
The gene, IRF4, had already been identified as being involved in producing hair colour. It does this by controlling the production and storage of the pigment melanin. The fact that it is also associated with greying was not surprising, because melanin is absent in grey hair, but it was the first time that any such gene had been found.
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Dr Tobin said that the key factor in spotting the gene was looking at younger people.
“There is no point at looking at people in their 60s or 70s, as all ancestries would make them grey. If there is a genetic link to greying it will start appearing in the background earlier.”
Having found the gene, he said that he wanted to see how the mechanism worked. “Now we need to go back to the lab and start to look at what this could mean in a biological sense. Is it linked to reduced survival in pigment-forming cells in hair follicles, for instance?”
Kaustubh Adhikari, a postdoctoral student at University College London who co- authored the study, said that investigating the way the gene works, and how it affects proteins and enzymes that are part of the process of melanin production, will help them to work out the causes of greyness and perhaps find a prevention.
“Once we know what is going on, we could find a drug target,” he said. In the more immediate future the work may feed into the growing branch of forensic research that aims to use DNA to create criminal profiles. “If we have DNA from a crime scene, we want to create a picture of the person,” Dr Adhikari said. “From the DNA we can get hair colour, eye colour.”
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Their work will give investigators information on more features and extend the database available beyond Europeans and North Americans, who have until now been the main focus of forensic profiling research.
“If you look at the major continental populations you see huge hair diversity,” Dr Adhikari said. “Most sub-Saharan Africans have frizzy hair. East Asians and Native Americans have straight hair. Europeans are the only ones to have blond or brunette hair.”
That is the reason Latin Americans were chosen for the study. As a genetic mixture of Europeans, Africans and Native Americans — who are themselves originally from East Asia — they have a mix of the main global hair types.
I’m proud of the family silver
If there is a greying gene, I have it (writes Jane Clarke). My mother went grey early, so did my great aunt and so did I — in my early twenties. I was upset, it felt too young, and for five or six years I coloured it but I found the whole process horrendous; I went into the hairdresser one person and came out another.
Eventually I realised that my mother and aunt looked stunning with grey hair. These days I am grey and proud. Grey hair is beautiful. I have always found it very attractive in men — Richard Gere became exceedingly attractive in old age (not, of course, that he was unattractive in An Officer and a Gentleman).
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The trend of women having Botox and plastic surgery and not being natural is probably why we would want to eliminate a grey hair gene. In response I would always look to beautiful women such as Dame Judi Dench, Helen Mirren and Annie Lennox.
I have had short grey now for many years. It has peripheral benefits, giving me perceived gravitas, which is great. But, more than that, it is just beautiful.
Jane Clarke is a health writer and nutritionist