Hair color features are one of the phenotypes that are incredibly conspicuous in human beings, ranging from blond, brown, red, to black. This kind of diversity is generally linked to the ratio and quantity of the dark brown-black eumelanin and the brown-reddish pheomelanin. Undertaking studies about the wide diversity that the human hair reflects leads to the development of various chemical methods that quantify the two pigmentations. The oxidation of hydrogen peroxide affords PTCA as an ingredient in making eumelanin and TTCA as a critical ingredient for making Pheomelanin (Wakamatsu 1369). It is possible to use pheomelanin as a 4-AHP after the hydrolysis of hydrochloric acid. The two methods feature in the course of evaluating the contents …show more content…
The only exception is for red-haired people where there are equal eumelanin and pheomelanin levels. Consequently, there is ample correlation between the chemical phenotype and the visual phenotype (Napolitano, Panzella, Monfrecola 721). There is a gene that controls the production of red hair called the MC1R (Wakamatsu 1369). Its other important function is the regulation of the phenotype that causes red hair and is also used to predict melanin patterns while expressed as the logarithm value of pheomelanin to eumelanin ratio with the evidence of a dosage effect. The contents of hair melanin were also evaluated in individuals suffering from a series of hypopigmentary complications, including Menkes disease, Hermansky P. syndrome, cystinosis, proopiomelanocortin deficiency, trace metal complication, and malnutrition. The phenotype (chemical) came in handy while evaluating the exact effects that the aforementioned diseases cause on pigmentation. In human hair studies, there will be more and more application of the chemical phenotype while seeking to objectively measure …show more content…
Cultured melanocytes in human beings show great variations with respect to the visual pigmentation. What is more, they recapitulate the phenotype responsible for pigmentation of the skin of the donor. The diversity is sourced from the fact that there exist differences in quantity and type of the produced melanin. Furthermore, the complicated interaction of epigenetic and genetic factors that link the exposure of the sun to melanoma in the phenotype that causes red hair hinges on the chemical and physical properties of pheomelanin, including the associated biosynthetic pathway. Further, it is activated by the effects of inactivating polymorphisms that are contained in the melanocortin 1 receptor gene (Napolitano, Panzella, Monfrecola 721). Aside from the long pathways of cell damage and toxicity that are UV dependent, a prooxidant state that is UV dependent and which is induced by pheomelanin within the background that is genetically determined of the phenotype that causes red hair has been disclosed recently. Thus, this argument maintains that there are UV independent and UV dependent chemical mechanisms that characterize oxidative trauma that is mediated by