Name: genes and environment shape height
Uploaded: 2019-03-11T09:21:17.000Z
Duration: 1 min 10 s
Channel: JoVE

K12 Standards

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North Carolina K-12 Science Standard Course of Study

9-12

Biology

heredity-inheritance-and-variation-of-traits

Heredity- Inheritance and Variation of Traits

LS.Bio.7.3

Nature and Nurture

Characteristics like height are not only shaped by several genes referred to as the influence of nature but also by various environmental factors collectively called nurture.

For example, poor nutrition during childhood such as a lack of protein can stunt an individual&#39;s growth causing them to be shorter at adulthood than they would have been with better nutrition. Interestingly, improvements in nutrition likely contributed to a gradual increase in average height since the early 20th century. A trend particularly evident in certain regions of the Americas, Europe and Asia.

However, evidence also exists that children&#39;s emotional environments like chronic stress and a lack of socialization interferes with levels of growth hormones in the body decreasing them and similarly curbing stature. So, sometimes it&#39;s the interplay between nature and nurture that dictates the final appearance of a phenotype like someone&#39;s height and even whether that person develops cancer or heart disease later in life.

nature and nurture

Many human characteristics, like height, are shaped by both nature&mdash;in other words, by our genes&mdash;and by nurture, or our environment. For example, chronic stress during childhood inhibits the production of growth hormones and&nbsp;consequently reduces&nbsp;bone growth and height. Scientists estimate that 70-90% of variation in height is due to genetic differences among individuals, and 10-30% of variation in height is due to differences in the environments that individuals experience, such as differences in diet.&nbsp;Many other phenotypes are similarly influenced by both genes and environments. Some of these phenotypes arise later in life, like cancer and other diseases.

<h4>Nutrition&rsquo;s Influence on Height</h4>

Hundreds of genes that influence height in humans have been identified. One study found that the most important factor explaining current differences in stature among men in different nations was the ratio between the intake of high-quality animal protein and low-quality proteins from grain and vegetables during childhood.

The tallest early men are believed to be Upper Paleolithic hunters from the Gravettian culture, which thrived in Europe 34,000 to 26,000 years ago. Their stature (ranging from 5&rsquo;10&rdquo; to 6&rsquo;2&rdquo;) was due in part to a low population density and a diet abundant in high-quality animal protein. In modern times, increased stature is attributed to nutritional and socioeconomic improvements.

<h4>The Impact of Stress on Stature</h4>

Physical growth is metabolically demanding and is inhibited by stress, in part through the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. For example, corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) stimulates the synthesis of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which induces the release of glucocorticoids (e.g., cortisol, the &ldquo;stress hormone&rdquo;). Cortisol stimulates appetite but reduces the liver&rsquo;s production of IGF-1, which is also needed for bone growth and development. Additionally, an excess of glucocorticoids increases somatostatin release, which inhibits the release of growth hormone.

In children, chronic stress has been shown to inhibit bone growth and weight gain&mdash;both of which can resume when stress is reduced or eliminated. In addition, when children are raised under socially stressful conditions, where too many children are sharing too few resources, and both physical and emotional needs are unmet, children can also experience growth delay. This is evident in institutionalized children who do not develop strong, consistent relationships with their caregivers. Therefore, stress, psychosocially-induced growth hormone reduction, and inadequate nutrition can all stunt stature.

<h4>A Combination of Nature and Nurture</h4>

Because people inherit different genes and grow, live, and develop under different environmental conditions, it is important to consider that both nature and nurture influence the final appearance of many phenotypes&mdash;even those that may develop later in life, like cancer or heart disease.

Many human characteristics, like height, are shaped by both nature&mdash;in other words, by our genes&mdash;and by nurture, or our environment. For ...

Education

JoVE Core

Genetics

Classical and Modern Genetics

KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS

genes and environment shape height

Genes and environment both shape human height and other traits. Genes are the inherited instructions we get from our parents. Environment includes factors such as diet, stress, and social conditions. Many phenotypes, or observable traits, reflect both influences. Some also show up later in life, including cancer and other diseases.

Height is a clear example of this interaction. Scientists estimate that 70-90% of height variation comes from genetic differences among people. The remaining 10-30% comes from environmental differences, such as diet. Hundreds of genes linked to height have been identified in humans.

Nutrition can strongly affect how tall a person grows during childhood. One study found that the biggest factor in stature differences among men in different nations was the balance between high-quality animal protein and lower-quality protein from grains and vegetables. Early Upper Paleolithic hunters from the Gravettian culture were among the tallest known men. They lived in Europe 34,000 to 26,000 years ago. Their height, from about 5'10&quot; to 6'2&quot;, was helped by a low population density and a diet rich in high-quality animal protein. In modern times, greater height is linked to improved nutrition and social conditions.

Stress can also limit growth. Physical growth uses a lot of energy, and stress can slow it down through the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. In this pathway, corticotropin-releasing hormone, or CRH, stimulates adrenocorticotropic hormone, or ACTH. ACTH leads to the release of glucocorticoids such as cortisol, the main stress hormone. Cortisol can reduce the liver’s production of IGF-1, a factor needed for bone growth, and too much glucocorticoid can increase somatostatin, which lowers growth hormone release.

Chronic stress in children can reduce bone growth and weight gain, and these changes may improve when stress is reduced. Growth delay can also appear when children live in socially stressful settings with too many children sharing too few resources and with unmet physical and emotional needs. This is seen in institutionalized children who do not form strong, steady relationships with caregivers. Overall, genes and environment work together to shape final traits, including features that may develop much later in life.

Genes and Environment Shape Height

genetic lingo

Genotype, Phenotype, and Inheritance

Genotype, phenotype, and inheritance help explain how traits and disease risk are passed from parents to offspring. In diploid organisms, including humans, most other animals, and many plants, somatic cells carry a duplicate set of chromosomes. These chromosome pairs are homologous, with similar length, centromere position, and gene locations. Diploid organisms inherit two versions of each gene, one from each parent. These versions are called alleles, and they sit at the same relative locus,...

punnett squares

Punnett Squares for Predicting Traits

Punnett squares help predict which traits offspring may inherit from two parents. They show possible genotypes, which are pairs of alleles, and can also show the chance of a phenotype, or visible trait, when the inheritance pattern is known. These grids work best for traits controlled by a single gene locus and passed on independently during meiosis. Punnett squares were developed in the early 1900s by Reginald Punnett. His work came after Gregor Mendel’s pea plant experiments revealed the...

monohybrid crosses

Mendel’s Pea Plant Inheritance Ratios

Gregor Mendel used pea plants to study how traits are passed from parents to offspring. His breeding experiments in the 1850s and 1860s showed that inheritance follows clear patterns. He crossed true-breeding plants that differed in one trait and found that dominant traits can hide recessive traits. Mendel focused on seven pea plant traits, and each trait had two forms controlled by a single gene locus. He noticed that true-breeding plants always produced offspring with the same phenotype, or...

dihybrid crosses

Mendel's Law of Independent Assortment

Mendel’s law of independent assortment explains how two traits can be inherited separately. Gregor Mendel tested this idea with pea plants that differed in two characteristics, such as pea color and pea shape. He used true-breeding parents that were homozygous for both traits but showed different phenotypes. In one example, Mendel crossed round, yellow peas with wrinkled, green peas. The parental generation had RRYY and rryy genotypes. Their first-generation offspring were all dihybrids,...

law of segregation

Mendel’s Pea Cross Ratios

Mendel’s pea plant crosses show how traits can disappear in one generation and return in the next. When he crossed plants, one parental trait sometimes seemed to vanish in the F1 generation and reappear in the F2 generation. Mendel used this pattern to explain why some traits are dominant and others are recessive. He proposed that traits are controlled by alleles, which are different versions of a gene. An organism inherits two copies of each gene, one from each parent. In his model, a...

probability laws

Inheritance Risk with Sum and Product Rules

Inheritance risk can be calculated with the sum rule and the product rule. The sum rule applies to mutually exclusive events, or events that cannot happen at the same time. The product rule applies to independent events, or events that do not affect one another. These rules describe theoretical probability, which is the chance of an event before it happens. Empirical probability is different because it is based on events that have already occurred. These probability rules are useful in...

law of independent assortment

Mendel’s Dihybrid Cross and Trait Ratios

Mendel’s dihybrid cross shows how two traits are inherited at the same time. A dihybrid cross is a cross in which both parents are homozygous for two distinct traits, and the F1 generation is heterozygous for both traits. Mendel used pea plants with round yellow peas and wrinkled green peas as an example. One parent had genotype YYRR, and the other had genotype yyrr. In the F1 generation, every plant showed the dominant traits, so the plants were YyRr and had yellow, round peas. The F2...

test cross

Using Test Crosses to Identify Genotypes

Test crosses are used to identify the genotype of an organism with a dominant trait. A genotype is the pair of alleles inherited for a gene, and alleles are different forms of the same gene. In diploid organisms, including humans, each gene usually has two alleles, one from each parent. An allele is recessive when its effect is hidden by another allele at the same gene location. Pea plants provide a clear example with flower color. White flowers are recessive, because one copy of the purple...

polygenic traits

Polygenic Traits in Human Height

Polygenic traits are traits controlled by more than one gene. Human height is a clear example of this kind of inheritance. Because many genes work together, the final trait can vary a lot from person to person. Researchers have found hundreds of loci, or gene locations, that influence height. There are likely many more that have not yet been identified. Many of these genes affect cartilage in the growth plates of the long bones in the arms and legs, either directly or indirectly. Height is...

pedigree analysis

Reading Family Traits in Pedigrees

Pedigrees are family trees used to track how a trait passes through generations. They help scientists and students see whether a trait is dominant or recessive, whether it is autosomal or sex-linked, what genotypes family members may have, and what phenotypes may appear in future generations. For families with a history of inherited disease, this information can be important for family planning. In plants and animals, inheritance is often studied with crosses. Monohybrid crosses can show...

multiple allele traits

Blood Type and Allele Interactions

Multiple alleles can shape traits through blood type, sickle cell anemia, incomplete dominance, and codominance. Multiple allelism means a gene has three or more allelic forms. Diploid organisms, including humans, usually carry only two alleles for each gene, but many human genes exist in multiple forms in the population. Human blood type is a clear example of multiple allelism. The blood type gene has three alleles: I A , I B , and i. These alleles help determine which blood type a person has...

epistasis

Gene Masking in Rabbit Fur Color

Epistasis describes how one gene can mask or change the effect of another gene. In high school genetics, this helps explain why many traits do not follow a simple single-gene pattern. Instead, alleles at different locations can work together to shape the final phenotype. Mendel studied seven unrelated pea traits, but most traits involve multiple gene interactions. Epistasis often happens when one gene interferes with the expression of another gene. It can also occur when genes are part of the...

Genes and environment both shape human height and other traits. Genes are the inherited instructions we get from our parents. Environment includes factors such as diet, stress, and social conditions. Many phenotypes, or observable traits, reflect both influences. Some also show up later in life, including cancer and other diseases. Height is a clear example of this interaction. Scientists estimate that 70-90% of height variation comes from genetic differences among people. The remaining 10-30%...

pleiotropy

SOX10 and Multiple Traits in Pleiotropy

Pleiotropy is when one gene affects more than one trait. The SOX10 gene is a clear example because it can influence pigmentation, hearing, and intestinal movement. These traits may seem unrelated, but they can all be linked to the same gene change. In humans, a deleted region in SOX10 can cause Waardenburg Syndrome Type 4, or WS4. WS4 is an autosomal recessive disorder, which means a person usually inherits two altered copies of the gene. Common signs include a white forelock,...

sex-linked disorders

X- and Y-Linked Disorder Patterns

X- and Y-linked disorders come from mutations in genes on the sex chromosomes. These genes, like those on autosomes, are needed for normal body function. When a mutation causes a biological problem, the condition is called sex-linked. Y-linked disorders come from changes in the Y chromosome. They affect only males, because only males carry a Y chromosome. Mutations in this small chromosome can affect male sexual function and secondary sex characteristics. One example is Y-chromosome...

x-linked traits

X-Linked Inheritance in Families

X-linked inheritance explains how traits on the X chromosome are passed through families. In most mammalian species, females have two X sex chromosomes, while males have one X and one Y. A mutation on one X chromosome may be masked in females by a normal allele on the other X. In males, that same mutation is more likely to show because there is no second normal X to balance it. Traits caused by changes on the X chromosome are called X-linked traits. Color blindness is a well-studied example.

x-inactivation

Barr Bodies and X-Chromosome Balance

Barr bodies and X-chromosome balance help explain how female mammalian cells control gene activity from the X chromosome. The human X chromosome carries far more genes than the Y chromosome. Because males usually have one X chromosome and females have two, females would make twice as many of some proteins without a control system. To prevent that imbalance, female mammalian cells inactivate nearly all the genes on one X chromosome during early embryonic development. The inactive X condenses...

non-nuclear inheritance

Maternal DNA in Mitochondria and Chloroplasts

Maternal DNA in mitochondria and chloroplasts explains how some genes are inherited outside the nucleus. Most DNA is in the nucleus, but mitochondria and chloroplasts in the cell cytoplasm also carry their own DNA and can copy it independently of nuclear DNA. Mitochondria are found in both plant and animal cells. They are called the powerhouses of eukaryotic cells because they break down glucose to make energy for cellular activity. Mitochondrial DNA has about 37 genes, and many help with...

chromosomal theory of inheritance

How Genes Map to Chromosomes

Genes map to chromosomes, and this idea explains how Mendel’s inheritance patterns work. Gregor Mendel published his pea plant breeding results in 1866. He showed that physical traits follow predictable patterns. At the time, scientists did not yet know that genes existed. Mendel used the word "factors" for the hereditary units he studied. The details behind Mendel’s laws of segregation and independent assortment were still unknown for many years. In the late 1800s, better microscopes and...

key terms and concepts

Learn how genes, diet, and stress work together to affect height and other traits, from childhood growth to later-life diseases.

Genes and Environment Shape Height | JoVE K12

JoVE Core series brings biology to life through over 300 concise and easy-to-understand animated video lessons that explain key concepts in biology, plus more than 150 scientist-in-action videos that show actual research experiments conducted in today’s laboratories.

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Virginia  Standards of Learning

HIgh School

Life Science

LS.10

LS.10.c

Alabama Course of Study Science

Heredity: Inheritance and Variation of Traits

9-12.B.3.11.b

Next Generation Science Standards

High School

HS-LS3-1

new-york-state-science-learning-standards

New York State Science Learning Standards

Inheritance and Variation of Traits

HS-LS3-1.

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LS.Bio.7.1

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A pedigree is a diagram displaying a family&#x2019;s history of a trait. Analyzing pedigrees can reveal (1) whether a trait is dominant or ...

Probability Laws

Overview

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LS.Bio.7.2

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Pleiotropy is the phenomenon in which a single gene impacts multiple, seemingly unrelated phenotypic traits. For example, defects in the SOX10 gene cause ...

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LS.Bio.8.1

Understand genetic mechanisms for variation.

Genes and Environment Shape Height

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