Expert: Dana Krempels, Ph.D. - 7/20/2009

Question
Back in HS my science teacher told us that straight hair was recessive, so I told my husband that we had no chance of having a curly haired baby.  We both have very thick straight straight straight hair.  Our daughter has curly/wavy hair.  I just read another of your answers and to my understanding you said that curly was dominant and modifiers only effect  how curly if the main dominant gene is present.  Are there recessive genes that we could be carrying that could give her wavy/curly hair if she does not have the main curly dominant gene?  Her hair is the kind that gets really curly when wet, or if it dries from wet without being flattened, but when she sleeps on it gets flattened into waves, which spring back into curls if I brush it upward with a damp brush.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.  If you could help me out understanding this I would really appreciate it!

Answer
Dear Laurie,

It would be very unusual for two parents with very, very straight hair to have a curly-haired child, but not impossible.  The "conventional wisdom" about curly vs. straight hair is that this trait is controlled by a single gene locus, one (dominant) allele coding for curly hair, and the other (recessive) coding for curly.  I'm not sure you're familiar with genetic terminology, so I'll insert a wee primer here.  Skip to the row of asterisks far below, if you don't need the primer, but here goes...

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Human hair, eye, and skin color are very complex and difficult to predict, because each of these traits is controlled by more than one gene.  It's not really a matter of a child taking after the father or mother's side.  Genes don't work that way.  What matters is which parent has the dominant versions of the various genes that affect the traits in question, because these are the ones most likely to be expressed by the child--though not always.

To fully explain this, I need to give you a quick overview of basic genetics.  Here goes!

Every animal (including human) carries two copies of every gene.  Scientists now estimate that a human has about 30,000 genes in his/her genome, and every human has two copies of that genome:  one from mom, and one from dad.  The two versions of each gene (called *alleles*) may be the same in a single person, or they may be different.  What does that mean?

A brief example.  Let's say that there's a human gene that codes for the shape of the forehead hairline.  There are two versions of the gene.  One, which we'll call "W", codes for a small "V" of hair to point down onto the forehead (Widow's Peak).  The other version, which we'll call "w", codes for a straight hairline.  In this case, the W allele of the gene masks the expression of the w allele.  The W is said to be *dominant*, and the w is said to be *recessive*.  So if every person has two copies of this gene, then the possible combinations are:

WW - Widow's peak
Ww - Widow's peak
ww - straight

Human hair, skin and eye color are not that simple.  Instead of being controlled by only one gene, these traits are each controlled by *several* different genes, each with two or more versions (alleles).
This means that the different versions can combine and interact in unpredictable ways to produce a wide range of phenotypes (physical appearance).

A trait that is controlled by several genes is called a POLYGENIC TRAIT. A polygenic trait is the expression of a single phenotypic trait that is affected by the action of more than one gene.

There are too many examples to list, since most traits are--at least to some degree--polygenic.  But human hair color, eye color, and skin color are among them.

One cute, easy-to-see example of a polygenic trait is the inheritance of fruit color in bell peppers, and it is a bit analogous to the human traits just named. There are at least three genes involved here, which we'll abbreviate as:

  * Y - timing of chlorophyll elimination (Y - early; y - normal)
  * R - color of carotenoids (R - red; r - yellow)
  * C - regulation of carotenoid deposition
   (C - normal; c1, c2 - lowered concentration)

(The capital letters indicate the dominant alleles; the lower case indicate various versions of recessive alleles.)

This leads to a few possible genotypes producing interesting phenotypes:
        o Y- rr c1c2 - pale yellow
        o Y- rr Cc2 - darker yellow
        o yy rr CC - green
        o Y- R- CC - red
        o yy Rr CC - purple
        o Y- Rr Cc2 - pale yellow

You can see what these look like here:

http://www.bio.miami.edu/dana/pix/bellpeppers.jpg

See?  It is a little bit like human color, but in this case there are only *three* genes involved.  Imagine how complicated things get when there are more than three genes, as there are in human hair, eye, and skin color!

The more genes involved in the expression/appearance of a trait, the more possible variations there are, and the more difficult (perhaps impossible) it becomes to guess what a baby will look like, especially if you don't know the exact genetics of the parents.  (Knowing the grandparents' phenotypes can help, but usually not very much.)

Hair color is a result of interaction between several genes that not only control the *color* of the hair pigmentation (one gene controls the expression of BROWN *eumelanin* pigment and a different gene controls expression of RED *phaeomelanin* pigment), but also *how much* pigment is deposited in the hair shaft.  The darker the hair, the greater the melanin deposition, but one can't really predict how dark a baby's hair will be, since s/he may inherit a wide variety of "darkness level" genes from both parents, and they can recombine in various ways to produce hair that ranges in color from very light to very dark.

If a person expresses both the eumelanin (brown) and phaeomelanin (red) genes, the hair will be reddish brown.  Dark to light brown hair with no trace of red occurs when only eumelanin is expressed, but in varying concentrations.  Blonde hair with no trace of red occurs when there is weak eumelanin expression and *no* phaeomelanin.  Red hair occurs when there is strong expression of phaeomelanin and weak expression of eumelanin.  Not all people express both genes, but in dark-haired people that do express both, you can sometimes see a reddish sheen in the hair in certain light.  But the darker eumelanin pigment often makes it difficult to see the red pigment, if it's present.

So you can see this is pretty complicated, even with just a few genes.

That said, red (auburn) hair is usually considered recessive to the other hair colors, as its expression can be masked if there is dark deposition of eumelanin.  Again, it's nearly impossible to predict what the combination of genes in your baby will produce, and hair color can also *change* with age!

Light colored eyes (blue, green, hazel, grey, etc.) are usually considered recessive to dark-colored eyes.  But this trait is controlled by at least five different genes.  There are genes that control (1) whether or not melanin is deposited in the iris (the dominant B allele codes for brown, and the recessive b allele, coding for no melanin, will result in pale irises.  These will be blue in the absence of other pigments), (2) the *amount* of pigment deposited (several genes that can combine to generate eyes that are very dark, almost black to relatively light brown), as well as (3) overlying carotenoid pigments that can change a blue iris to green, aqua, grey, or any number of variations.

And to make things even more complicated, eye color--like hair color--can change with age.

Still, one can predict, to some degree, whether a child will have light-colored or brown eyes.  The allele coding for light eyes (i.e., lack of melanin in the iris) is recessive to the allele coding for dark eyes (i.e., melanin deposited in the iris).  We usually abbreviate the light eye allele as "b" and the dark-eye allele as "B"--they are different versions of the same gene.

For a person to have light eyes, s/he must inherit two copies of the b allele (genotype bb).  A person needs only one copy of the B gene to have dark (brown) eyes, so can be either BB or Bb.

Skin color is probably the most complex of all the traits.  Freckles are apparently controlled by only one gene, and freckles are considered dominant to non-freckles.  But various factors during development can affect this, and exposure to sunlight can also determine the level of freckling that is expressed.

The shade of the skin in humans may be controlled by several genes, each with several alleles, and this makes the prediction of skin tone in a baby a nearly impossible task.

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Now, what does this mean to *your* situation?

As I mentioned, "curly" vs. "straight" hair is usually considered to be controlled by a single gene locus with two alleles.  If this is true, it must be an exceedingly ancient trait for this to be the same gene locus in every human population on earth, and I do wonder about this.

If there are multiple gene loci in human populations that control the curly vs. straight hair trait, then it's possible that a phenomenon known as complementation could result in a child receiving two functional genes coding for curly hair from each of two parents exhibiting a mutant phenotype.   This is far more complicated than I think you want me to explain (even my genetics students cringe when I ask them to explain complementation after that lecture...).  But in short, it means that if you and your husband carry mutations inactivating the wild type (curly) hair texture gene at different gene loci, then if each of you donates one normal gene, it's possible for the child to have curly hair.

Also note that although in Asia is is very rare for people to have curly hair because everyone there pretty much has really really straight here, the occasional child is born with curly hair, possibly due to a *reversion* mutation, in which the mutated gene (coding for straight hair) undergoes a second mutation that restores its wild type capability.  (There are other types of reversion mutations, but that's the simplest case.)

So though it's very *rare* for a child to have curly hair if both parents have straight hair, it's not absolutely impossible.

Hope that helps!

Dana