Scientists have identified three new genes that determine subtle variations in human eye colour -- clues that could help forensic investigators using DNA left at a crime scene to track down criminal suspects. Researchers from the Erasmus University Medical Centre Rotterdam in the Netherlands used a technique called a genome-wide association study, which scans gene maps, to analyse the eye colour of about 6,000 Dutch volunteers.
The colours were then digitally quantified and collated using high-resolution photographs of the whole eye, and the scientists found that human eye colour varies in many more ways than previously thought.
Previous studies on the genetics of human eye colour used broad trait information such as "blue", "green", and "brown", the researchers, led by Manfred Kayser, wrote in the study.
But this study showed that variation in eye colour runs in a continuous grading from the lightest blue to the darkest brown."These findings are of relevance for future forensic applications where appearance prediction from biological material found at crime scenes may provide investigative leads to trace unknown persons," Kayser said.
Kayser's team pinpointed three new genes which they said were "significantly associated" with quantitative eye colour.
Together with previously identified ones, these three genes could explain more than 50% of eye colour variance, they said — the highest accuracy so far achieved in using genes to predict a complex human trait.
EDITOR "these guys always find something always"
Todays Question "What's your color of your eyes"
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