Gene may have helped humans adapt to cold climates

A gene variant common in Europeans may have proliferated because it helped early humans adapt to cold weather, according to UCL research. For the study, published in PLOS Genetics , a team from UCL and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, investigated the evolution of TRPM8 , a gene that codes for the only known receptor that enables a person to detect and respond to cool and cold temperatures. This receptor is also activated by menthol and is responsible for the refreshing feeling of mint-containing products. A genetic variant in TRPM8 that is upstream from the gene and may regulate its expression, was found to be at highest frequency in individuals of European descent in northern climates, likely because it played a role in early human populations adapting to cold temperatures. This TRPM8 variant has been previously associated with a slightly higher risk of migraines, and although the percentage of the population that suffer migraines varies, it tends to be higher in the populations with the highest frequency of the cold-adaptive variant of the TRPM8 gene. The team found that the genetic variant became increasingly common in populations living in cold, northern climates during the last 25,000 years. Only 5% of people with Nigerian ancestry carry the variant, compared to 88% of people with Finnish ancestry.