Does baldness run in your family? Which side?

[lkm370]

Fathers Side:
Father-Norwood 2 at 60
Grandfather-Died NW2 at 76
Father's Brother(uncle)-Norwood 2 at 60

Mother's Side:
Father-NW1 till 50s then slow balding to NW6. Died at 67 at NW6(I think he was a NW6, My mom only has 2 photos of him in his 30s and he had a full head of thick black hair. I've never seen a photo of him bald but by my mom's descirption, he was a NW5/NW6)
Mother's brother-Still NW1, nearing 50

My brother is currently a NW4/5 at 27. Started diffuse thinning around 23.

Geniunely suprised I started balding so early. I figured I would either never bald or start balding when I was really old. Feelsbadman

 

[luis_scofield]

My dad was pretty much bald at 29 when i was born. Im 24. From my mother sides there are no baldies but not norwood 0 either.

 

[Wolf Pack]

Fullheads mum's side or minor recession at most.

Domes of varying degrees from dad's side.

 

[moxsom]

I'm not sure if the level of sensitivity of our hair follicles to DHT is entirely determined by the AR gene. Perhaps other genes may also play a role in determining how DHT interacts with our follicles? Hopefully the OP might give his thoughts on this with his better knowledge of male pattern baldness genetics than what most of the rest of us have.

Hey sorry for the late reply. This right here is the underlying question that I think is the most important crux in hairloss. What makes the androgen receptor so sensitive to DHT?

And you're right it's not just the androgen receptor. The whole pathway map of an androgen receptor has a lot of players in the game. Here's an example picture - although this is not a dermal papillae one specifically you can still get the idea.



It's complicated. Once DHT binds to the androgen receptor lots of downstream effects happen. If it's sensitive - all kinds of inflammatory proteins/molecules will get to work at destroying that hair slowly. You won't even notice the damage until it's done.

So what are the genes we know play the biggest roles currently?

Androgen Receptor (AR) - Gene on the X chromosome
ectodysplasin A2 receptor (EDA2R) - Also on the X chromosome
rs12558842 - located upstream of AR and EDA2R - A SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) that probably regulates the AR/EDA2R genes
HDAC9 - located on chromosome 7
rs1160312 - a SNP located on chromosome 20
TARDBP - on Chromosome 1
HDAC4 - on chromosome 2
WNT10A - on chromosome 2
etc, etc.

We have found polymorphisms on all of these genes that are significantly correlated to bald-men. Although we don't have a good idea of WHY they are all correlated - we know that they are from large genome wide association studies. Some of them have to do with the Androgen Receptor directly, some of them have to do with the downstream effects of the androgen receptor/DHT binding and others we have no idea what they're doing.

So yeah, while we only get one X chromosome from our mom, you can see that baldness correlated genes are all throughout the genome - so Mom and Dad contribute. Thanks parents!

Hope this helps. Let me know if I can clear anything up further.

Edit: Here's a better link to the androgen receptor signalling - http://www.bio-rad.com/en-ca/prime-...scription-androgen-receptor-nuclear-signaling