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Mothers' genetic skew linked to gay sons

Pah

Pah

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NewScientist - subscription may be needed
Mothers' genetic skew linked to gay sons

19:00 03 November 04

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.

There has been much debate over “gay genes”. Now an intriguing study raises another possibility: in some cases, variations in the genetic program we inherit from our parents, rather than in the genes themselves, might determine sexual preference.

Our genome is “programmed” by the addition of chemical markers called methyl groups to the DNA, which shut down genes. One of the most dramatic examples of methylation is the shutdown of one of the two X chromosomes (one from each parent) in every woman’s cells, a process called X-inactivation (New Scientist print edition, 10 May 2003).

Normally, this process is random; either of the X chromosomes can be inactivated.

But when Sven Bocklandt of the University of California, Los Angeles, compared blood and saliva samples from 97 mothers of gay men with samples from 103 mothers without gay children he found this process was extremely skewed in the mothers with gay sons, with one X chromosome being far more likely to be inactivated than the other.


"I like males"

Only 4% of the mothers without gay sons showed this skewing, compared with 14% of mothers with at least one gay son. Among mothers with two or more gay sons, the figure was 23%.

Such skewing is generally associated with genetic disorders, but the mothers all appear to be healthy. Their daughters also seemed unaffected, with only 1 out of 24 showing skewing.

Bocklandt suspects that whatever is causing the skewed methylation of the X chromosome also affects the methylation of certain genes on the chromosomes the women pass on to their sons. Mothers might not be resetting their own “I like males” program, he told a meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics in Toronto last week.

“I’m not absolutely persuaded, but it’s an interesting hypothesis,” says Ian Craig of the Institute of Psychiatry in London. “Until you’ve got some molecular way to test it, it’s just a nice idea.”


Alison Motluk, Toronto
Click to expand...

The genetic evidence keeps mounting and some Christians continue to bury their heads in a "morality" sand. Morality should lie in recognition of sexuality's true character but ignorance prevails.

Should the ignorance become willfull, the immoral will not be the homosexual , transexual or intersexed but those who blindly follow faith.

-pah-
 
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