DNA Traits · Appearance

Red hair association

Red hair, which comes from making more of a red-yellow pigment than a brown-black one.

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Evidence · Replicated

What the research found

In the cited research, the T allele at rs1805007 was associated with red hair pigmentation.

CC: Less often
CT: Middle
TT: More often

Strong effect

Evidence: Functional coding variant and association
Who was studied: Australian pigmentation samples, including South-East Queensland participants and adolescent twins and families

1000 Genomes Project

How common each genotype is

How common each genotype is in the 1000 Genomes Project, by region
Region	CCLess often	CTMiddle	TTMore often
All regions2,504 people	96%	3%	<1%
Africa661 people	>99%	<1%	Not seen
The Americas347 people	97%	3%	Not seen
East Asia504 people	>99%	<1%	Not seen
Europe503 people	86%	13%	<1%
South Asia489 people	99%	1%	Not seen

Among the 2,504 people of the 1000 Genomes Project, in five world regions. These percentages describe groups of people, never anyone’s chance of having a trait.

Ancient genomes

Through time

How often the studied letter was read in ancient people, era by era, in the region chosen.

Region

Through time: Europe
Before farmingbefore 6500 BC	0%0 of 70 copies read
First farmers6500 to 3000 BC	1%14 of 1,056 copies read
Bronze Age3000 to 1200 BC	3%27 of 1,052 copies read
Iron Age and Antiquity1200 BC to AD 600	4%46 of 1,233 copies read
Middle AgesAD 600 to 1500	3%21 of 644 copies read
Today1000 Genomes	7%72 of 1,006 copies

Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes

Altai Neanderthal: No copies
Vindija Neanderthal: No copies
Chagyrskaya Neanderthal: No copies
Denisovan: No copies

Neanderthals and Denisovans carried the other letter, so this letter is younger than our split with them.

For most ancient people only one of their two copies can be read, so these counts are copies read, not people. Close relatives, repeated samples and samples the archive marks as unreliable are left out. Damage in old DNA can fake this letter, so it is counted only from samples treated to remove that damage and from high-quality genomes. Ancient genomes from the Allen Ancient DNA Resource (AADR v66): 15,136 people.

rs1805007

The marker

Gene or region: MC1R
Marker: rs1805007
Location: Chromosome 16 · GRCh37 89,986,117 · GRCh38 89,919,709
Letters studied: C and T, with T as the studied allele

A DNA Traits report reads this marker in your raw DNA file and shows which of the three genotypes is yours, with how common it is. It counts the copies of the studied allele; it does not measure the trait itself.

Marker: MC1R · rs1805007
Location: Chromosome 16 · GRCh37 89,986,117 · GRCh38 89,919,709
Studied allele: T
Published statistic: OR 118 per R151C (forward T) allele for red hair, multinomial regression; the four strong MC1R alleles D84E, R151C, R160W and D294H had ORs of 63, 118, 50 and 94 (Abstract) (Abstract)
1000 Genomes Project phase 3, people with 0, 1 and 2 copies: All regions 2415 / 85 / 4 · Africa 657 / 4 / 0 · The Americas 336 / 11 / 0 · East Asia 503 / 1 / 0 · Europe 435 / 64 / 4 · South Asia 484 / 5 / 0

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Limits

What it cannot tell you

R151C is one of several MC1R variants. One copy does not establish red hair; other MC1R variants are not reconstructed here.

Genetic association and cellular function of MC1R variant alleles in human pigmentation (Sturm et al., 2003)

The same topic

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