Curly or Straight?

Look carefully at these two mice and you’ll notice something strange about their whiskers. The animal on the left, which is genetically normal, has strong, straight hairs poking from its snout. But its littermate has short, curly whiskers. This unorthodox hairstyle is caused by an inherited fault in a gene called zyklopen, which was first identified in a child with very sparse and unusually short, curled hair. Curiously, the gene seems to be involved in controlling the chemical state of iron inside cells, although the exact connection with hair growth is still unknown. Not only do faults in the human version of the gene (known as HEPHL1) cause hair growth problems, they’re also linked to more serious health issues such as ADHD, speech disorders, increased joint mobility, severe heat intolerance and chronic leg pain, so studying these mice as a stand-in for human patients could point towards potential new treatments.

Written by Kat Arney

Kat Arney

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Dr Kat Arney is an award-winning science writer, broadcaster and public speaker, and is the founder and Creative Director of First Create The Media.

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• Image adapted from work by Prashant Sharma and colleagues
• NIH Undiagnosed Diseases Program, Common Fund, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in PLOS Genetics, May 2019