一个国际联合研究小组宣称已经开发出了一种精度很高的预测个人头发颜色的方法。新技术通过从现场留下的血液、精液、唾液或皮肤细胞中提取的DNA（脱氧核糖核酸）对嫌疑人头发的颜色作出判断，精度可达到90%。研究人员称，这将为法医学提供一项新的信息获取手段，有可能改变目前法医学在此方面的面貌。相关论文发表在最近一期的《人类遗传学》杂志上。
这项研究由来自荷兰和波兰的一个联合研究小组负责，能通过DNA检测在90%的精度上推断出嫌疑人头发是黑色还是红色，也能在80%的精度上，对金黄色或棕色头发进行判断。该技术甚至可以对几种颜色极其相近的发色进行区分，例如红色和淡红色，浅黄色和深黄色。
据介绍，研究人员是通过对数百名欧洲人DNA的研究，并综合此前关于基因与发色之间的研究，才最终确定基因与发色之间的对应关系的。
负责该研究的鹿特丹伊拉兹马斯大学法医分子生物学教授曼弗雷德·凯泽尔说，通过DNA来判断嫌疑人头发的颜色是法医学的一项突破，将为嫌疑人的筛选提供重要的信息。“在很多时候，当一切线索看起来都中断了的时候，头发的颜色往往能给侦探们带来意想不到的宝贵信息。”
凯泽尔说：“我们能从13种DNA标志物中提取基因，以此来确定与发色相关的11个基因。”他表示，在不远的将来，通过DNA测试确定发色会成为法医的一个标准工具，并在案件侦破中发挥重要的作用。调查人员目前正在利用这种基因分析法将犯罪现场留下的DNA与警方的数据库进行比较。
据了解，去年9月，该研究小组还公布了一项通过血液中的T细胞来估算其所有者年龄的方法，并宣称其误差仅在9岁以内。此外他们还开发出了一种通过DNA信息判断眼睛颜色的方法。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原文出处：
Human Genetics, 2011; DOI: 10.1007/s00439-010-0939
Model-based prediction of human hair color using DNA variants
Wojciech Branicki, Fan Liu, Kate Duijn, Jolanta Draus-Barini, Ewelina Po?piech, Susan Walsh, Tomasz Kupiec, Anna Wojas-Pelc, Manfred Kayser
Predicting complex human phenotypes from genotypes is the central concept of widely advocated personalized medicine, but so far has rarely led to high accuracies limiting practical applications. One notable exception, although less relevant for medical but important for forensic purposes, is human eye color, for which it has been recently demonstrated that highly accurate prediction is feasible from a small number of DNA variants. Here, we demonstrate that human hair color is predictable from DNA variants with similarly high accuracies. We analyzed in Polish Europeans with single-observer hair color grading 45 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from 12 genes previously associated with human hair color variation. We found that a model based on a subset of 13 single or compound genetic markers from 11 genes predicted red hair color with over 0.9, black hair color with almost 0.9, as well as blond, and brown hair color with over 0.8 prevalence- adjusted accuracy expressed by the area under the receiver characteristic operating curves (AUC). The identified genetic predictors also differentiate reasonably well between similar hair colors, such as between red and blondred,as well as between blond and dark-blond, highlighting the value of the identified DNA variants for accurate hair color prediction.
