Scientists have found genes that regulate people's lighter skin tones and adapt to the cold

scientists in China have discovered genes that regulate the lighter complexion of modern people and their adaptation to the cold. The results have been published in
journals.
, author of the paper and a researcher at the Kunming Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that modern humans originated in Africa between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago, and spread out of Africa about 75,000 years ago and spread around the world. "Our African ancestors migrated from areas close to the equator to subtropical and cold zones at high latitudes and faced multiple challenges, such as reduced ultraviolet radiation and cooler weather. These environmental changes create new selection pressures on the human genome, resulting in new physiological and physiological adaptations. Cebu said.
UV radiation and temperature change with latitude, is there a genetic gene that adapts to both environmental changes?
, in collaboration with Kunming University of Technology and the Beijing Genomics Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, found that a gene called KITLG had mutated several times through the analysis of group genetic and cellular function experiments. In European and East Asian populations, the gene's selection signals appear in different regions, including the upstream and downstream regulatory regions of the gene.
"We speculate that the KITLG gene may have experienced more than one selection event in modern times as it spreads out of Africa to higher latitudes," Cebu explains, "because there are mutations in the gene that cause the skin tone of the Eurasian population to become lighter, but also in other regions that are rich in cold adaptation." The
then validated the hypothesy through cell cryogenic culture experiments. The results show that this is indeed an example of a gene's multiple functions being selected and affected by esotypes simultaneously in the population. (Source: Xinhua News Agency, Yue Ranran