Alopecia Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Alopecia, including details on hair loss, baldness, treatment, causes, prevention.

Genome-wide scan and fine-mapping linkage study of androgenetic alopecia reveals a locus on chromosome 3q26.

Hillmer AM, Flaquer A, Hanneken S, Eigelshoven S, Kortüm AK, Brockschmidt FF, Golla A, Metzen C, Thiele H, Kolberg S, Reinartz R, Betz RC, Ruzicka T, Hennies HC, Kruse R, Nöthen MM

Department of Genomics, Life and Brain Center, University of Bonn, D-53127 Bonn, Germany. axel.hillmer@uni-bonn.de

Androgenetic alopecia (AGA, male pattern baldness) is the most common form of hair loss. The origin of AGA is genetic, with the X chromosome located androgen receptor gene (AR) being the only risk gene identified to date. We present the results of a genome-wide linkage study of 95 families and linkage fine mapping of the 3q21-q29, 11q14-q25, 18p11-q23, and 19p13-q13 regions in an extended sample of 125 families of German descent. The locus with strongest evidence for linkage was mapped to 3q26 with a nonparametric linkage (NPL) score of 3.97 (empirical p value = 0.00055). This is the first step toward the identification of new susceptibility genes in AGA, a process which will provide important insights into the molecular and cellular basis of scalp hair loss.

Published 5 March 2008 in Am J Hum Genet, 82(3): 737-43.
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