The genetics of eye colours in an Italian population measured with an objective method for eye colour quantification |
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Affiliation: | 1. Section of Forensic Genetics, Department of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark;2. DTU Informatics – Informatics and Mathematical Modeling, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark;1. Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, Armed Forces Medical Examiner System, United States;2. American Registry of Pathology, United States;3. Flinders University, Australia;4. National Institute of Standards and Technology, United States;1. Laboratorio de Genética Molecular de Cruz Vital – Cruz Roja Ecuatoriana Quito, Ecuador;2. Laboratorio GENES Ltda, Medellin, Colombia;1. Institute of Legal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany;2. IPATIMUP – Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology of the University of Porto, Porto, Portugal;3. Forensic Genetics Unit, Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain |
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Abstract: | Brown and blue eye colours are primarily explained by the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) HERC2 rs12913832. However, the genetics of eye colours that appear to be neither blue nor brown are not well understood. In this study, 230 unrelated Italian individuals were typed for 32 SNP loci in pigmentary genes. High resolution digital images of the participants’ eyes were taken and the iris region was successfully extracted with the use of the custom designed software Digital Iris Analysis Tool (DIAT) from 218 of the 230 (95%) images. The software counted the numbers of blue and brown pixels in the iris region and calculated a Pixel Index of the Eye (PIE-score) that described the eye colours quantitatively. The PIE-score ranged from −1 to 1 (brown to blue). We investigated the association of the PIE-scores extracted from the eye images with the genotypes of the 32 pigmentary SNPs. We observed a statistically significant association between the PIE-scores and the SNP loci rs12913832, rs4778241, rs7495174 in the HERC2/OCA2 region and the locus rs16891982 in SLC45A2. |
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Keywords: | Eye colour SNP Pigmentary gene PIE-score Quantitative eye colour |
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