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Editorial
. 2022 Dec 30:11:e84865.
doi: 10.7554/eLife.84865.

How (some) mammals lost their hair

Matthew D Dean  1
Affiliations
Editorial

How (some) mammals lost their hair

Matthew D Dean. Elife. .

Abstract

An approach that allows scientists to identify regions of the genome that evolved faster in hairless mammals reveals candidate genetic mechanisms that gave rise to hairlessness.

Keywords: convergent evolution; evolutionary biology; genetics; genomics; hair; hairless; human; mouse; rat; regressive evolution; rhesus macaque.

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Conflict of interest statement

MD No competing interests declared

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Some regions of the genome - including both coding and noncoding regions - evolve faster in hairless species than in species with hair.
(A) Protein coding genes that exhibit accelerated evolution in hairless mammals are more highly expressed in the hair shaft, with the cortex of the hair (dark orange area) expressing a more of these genes. (B) Genes near accelerated noncoding regions tend to be expressed in the cells at the base of the hair, known as the matrix (shown in blue) and the dermal papilla (shown in yellow). Figure adapted from Kowalczyk et al., 2022.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

References

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