KITLG makes you white skinned?

Gene Expression
By Razib Khan
Dec 14, 2007 2:14 AMNov 5, 2019 9:26 AM

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A few years ago, a new paper, SLC24A5, a putative cation exchanger, affects pigmentation in zebrafish and humans, made some waves. It used zebrafish to elucidate the genetics of a locus, SLC24A5, which is responsible for 1/3 of the between population difference between Europeans and Africans in skin color. In short, Europeans are fixed for a derived variant, and Africans and East Asians for an ancestral one. Additionally, SLC24A5 shows up in tests for very recent (last 10,000 years) selection, and is implicated in 1/3 of the skin color variation in South Asians. Today, a similar paper which focuses on KITLG, cis-Regulatory Changes in Kit Ligand Expression and Parallel Evolution of Pigmentation in Sticklebacks and Humans:

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