Yann points to an article on a mutation in dogs that leads to increased muscle mass and speed:
Here we describe a new mutation in MSTN found in the whippet dog breed that results in a double-muscled phenotype known as the “bully” whippet. Individuals with this phenotype carry two copies of a two-base-pair deletion in the third exon of MSTN leading to a premature stop codon at amino acid 313. Individuals carrying only one copy of the mutation are, on average, more muscular than wild-type individuals (p = 7.43 × 10-6; Kruskal-Wallis Test) and are significantly faster than individuals carrying the wild-type genotype in competitive racing events (Kendall’s nonparametric measure, Ï„ = 0.3619; p ≈ 0.00028). These results highlight the utility of performance-enhancing polymorphisms, marking the first time a mutation in MSTN has been quantitatively linked to increased athletic performance.
The myostatin gene in humans plays a similar role in muscle growth– a deletion in the gene leads to extreme muscularity, as evidenced by the “Baby Superman“. The gene has also been shown to be under recent selection in humans–variants presumed to lead to more muscularity are far more common in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper in dogs shows that increased muscularity also leads to better performance in competititve racing events; it’s not such a strech to believe the same could be true in humans as well.
Comments are closed.