Pigment controller OCA2

Razib: "OCA2 makes East Asians white and Europeans blue."He discusses a study out of Esteban Parra's lab in PLoS Genetics (open access), which characterizes a non-synonymous polymorphism in China that lies on a recently selected haplotype. The genotypes correlate additively with skin melanin -- a very different effect from the European new mutant allele.

Edwards M, Bigham A, Tan J, Li S, Gozdzik A, et al. (2010) Association of the OCA2 Polymorphism His615Arg with Melanin Content in East Asian Populations: Further Evidence of Convergent Evolution of Skin Pigmentation. PLoS Genet 6(3): e1000867. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1000867