Score one for the nurture side of the nature vs. nurture debate, as North Carolina State University geneticists have shown that environmental factors such as lifestyle and geography play a large role in whether certain genes are turned on or off.
By studying gene expression of white blood cells in 46 Moroccan Amazighs, or Berbers - including desert nomads, mountain agrarians and coastal urban dwellers - the NC State researchers and collaborators in Morocco and the United States showed that up to one-third of genes are differentially expressed due to where and how the Moroccan Amazighs live.
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| ©North Carolina State University
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| By studying gene expression of white blood cells in 46 Moroccan Amazighs, or Berbers -- including desert nomads, mountain agrarians and coastal urban dwellers -- the researchers showed that up to one-third of genes are differentially expressed due to where and how the Moroccan Amazighs live.
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The NC State researchers, Youssef Idaghdour, an NC State graduate student in genetics and a Fulbright scholar, and Dr. Greg Gibson, formerly William Neal Reynolds Professor of Genetics at NC State and currently a faculty member at the University of Queensland in Australia, set out to study the impact of the transition from traditional to urbanized lifestyles on the human immune system.
