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Is talent all in the genes?
Independent, The (London), May 7, 2008 by Sanjida O'Connell
Sports scientists are creating DNA testing kits designed to identify tomorrow's superstars. But is greatness really inherited? Sanjida O'Connell investigates
Some people are born to play football. So says David Beckhams official website. After attending the Bobby Charlton Soccer School at 11, Beckham was selected to be a trainee for Manchester United at just 16 years old. The rest, as we know, is history, tattoos and |Gillette razor blades. But what if footballers really are born and |not made? A test to determine whether a child will turn into an lite soccer player is the stuff of football managers dreams.
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Recently, a European club approached Dr Henning Wackerhage, from the Institute of Medical |Science at the University of Aberdeen, to ask if he could genetically screen for potential football stars. Its not as fanciful as it sounds there is already a Sports Performance gene test available over the counter from a company that normally specialises in paternity testing, Genetic Technologies, based in Victoria, Australia.
Genetic Technologies gene test, which, the company says, will allow you to realise your full potential, is based on research carried out in 2003 by a group of Australian scientists. Yet it turns out that not |only are these scientists not involved in this genetic testing, they have little faith in the screening process itself. One of the key authors, Dr Daniel MacArthur, from the Institute for Neuromuscular Research at The Childrens Hospital in Westmead, Sydney, says: Its safe to say its premature to use this test to predict performance, particularly in soccer athletics. And really there is no point in the rest of us having the test. The gene the company is looking for is unlikely to influence anyone who is only interested in sport at an amateur level. So what is the real truth behind the search for soccer genes? Will we one day be able to determine that a star has been born? Is it so ridiculous to wonder if there is something in the DNA of, for |instance, Frank Lampard, the |former West Ham player and father of the current Chelsea star? After all, Frank Junior is also the cousin of former England midfielder Jamie Redknapp.
The story begins on another pitch. MacArthurs co-author, Professor Kathryn North, also based at Westmead, was studying people with neuromuscular disease in the hope of finding a cause if not a cure. North focused on a gene called ACTN3, which is found in a wide variety of organisms, from slime moulds to chickens as well as humans. ACTN3 controls the production of protein in muscles so seemed an excellent candidate. To the scientists joy they discovered that the patients were deficient in the protein, alpha-actinin-3, produced by the ACTN3 gene. But, North says, our elation quickly turned to confusion. It transpired that healthy relatives of the patients lacked this protein too as did several members of the research team. In fact, later research was to show that almost a fifth of white Caucasians are deficient in alpha-actinin-3. This protein is found in fast-twitch muscles, the type that are predominantly used to make powerful movements, such as sprinting and jumping, yet a fifth of the population are not crawling around unable to run for the bus.
Everyone has two copies of ACTN3 but some people have a variation which is known as R577X. This variant stops muscle cells from reading the entire code of ACTN3. Therefore, if a person has two copies of R577X, it means they cannot produce the protein alpha- actinin-3 at all. Yet since 18 per cent of the population dont make this protein, it means the story must be more complex. In fact, a second gene called ACTN2 helps compensate for the deficiency. The researchers reasoned that if theres a variation in the human population, people who have working copies of ACTN3 might be better at sprinting and power sports than the rest of us.
In short, the team had begun to unravel a complex map of genetic codes that affect our athletic abilities. In collaboration with the Australian Institute of Sport, they took DNA from more than 400 lite athletes who competed in a wide range of sports from swimming to cross-country skiing and compared their DNA with approximately the same number of normal people. What North found was that the endurance athletes generally had a deficient version of both genes. In other words, they discovered that lacking functioning copies of ACTN3 actually benefits slow, efficient muscle performance. In contrast, power and sprint athletes had two fully functioning copies of ACTN3. Thus, ACTN3 became dubbed the speed gene.
In theory, this means that it would be possible to screen for copies of ACTN3, but would this really be a good test to find the next football legend? MacArthur says: The important issue is to remember that the ACTN3 gene only accounts for 2 to 3 per cent of the variation in muscle strength and sprinting performance in non- athletes. This means that ACTN3 is not something that most of us would ever benefit from being tested for. However, this 2 to 3 per cent can make a big difference for super-lite athletes. In addition to high motivation and world-class training, these rare individuals need to have a near-perfect set of genes to have a chance of winning an Olympic medal. At this lite level, the ACTN3 gene appears to have a particularly strong effect on sprinters sprinters need to have at least one sprint version of ACTN3 to have a chance of competing at an Olympic level. So a test that shows that you do not have the speed gene would indicate that you could never become an Olympic sprinter no matter how hard you train. But if you do have speedy genes, does that mean you are more likely to one day be lifting the silverware instead of merely watching from the sidelines?
