For this reason, it is often wondered where the origin of blue-eyed Africans comes from. Of course, there are many different scientific explanations for this situation. For example, if a blue-eyed African has a white relative in his ancestry, this can be counted as a reason why he has blue eyes.
Or, a mutation related entirely to genes can cause this situation. In fact, in order to understand this issue, it is necessary to first look at the scientific explanation of how blue eyes are formed. Let’s take a look at how scientists have handled this situation.
In fact, humans originally had brown eyes, so blue eyes were the result of a genetic mutation.
In the research conducted at the University of Copenhagen, 800 male and female blue-eyed individuals from different countries were studied. As a result of the research, it was determined that blue eyes were caused by a genetic mutation that probably occurred 10,000 years ago, as a result of the participants having the same DNA sequence. In this context, medical professor Hans Eiberg says that humans are actually brown-eyed, thanks to a genetic mutation that affects the OCA2 (in humans, a protein encoded by the oculocutaneous albinism II gene) gene in the chromosomes.
This mutation is called ocular albinism. Some scientists even say that the OCA2 gene, formerly called the P gene, produces a pigment called melanin. Melanin is a substance that gives color to the skin, hair and eyes. Scientists say this gene mutation changes the amount of melanin produced in the iris of the eyes (the vascular region behind the transparent layer in the front of the eye that gives the eye its color) and lowers the concentration at which brown eyes occur, thus producing blue eyes. As you can see, this mutation restricts the ability to produce brown eyes.
Eighty percent of people with blue eyes live in Estonia and the Scandinavian countries.
In fact, most blue-eyed people live in Europe, but according to research by researcher Edmund Custers, all blue-eyed people in the world have the same gene mutation. For this reason, it is possible to talk about the existence of blue-eyed people with a total rate of eighty percent in all of Estonia, Scandinavian countries and African countries.
Waardenburg Syndrome is another cause of blue eyes.
Actually, this syndrome is like ocular albinism. But the only difference in this syndrome is that the eyes are different colors from each other and it includes some symptoms such as hearing loss and white hair on the forehead. In addition, Waardenburg Syndrome is a very rare genetic disease.
Having white relatives on the mother or paternal side of the family members is not enough to be a black person with blue eyes.
The maternal and paternal side of the family must have white relatives from both. Because being blue-eyed may not occur immediately in the family tree. This situation may take a few generations to emerge. For example, it did not appear in the grandmother, but the grandchild after the third generation, once you see, has blue eyes. The reason why this happens after generations is the presence of a partially recessive gene.
To explain by giving an example; We get most of our genes from two copies of both genes, one from our mother and one from our father. The brown version of the eye color gene (B) is more dominant than the recessive blue version (b). If any of your dominant genes is version B, then you cannot have blue eyes. Because blue will remain recessive compared to brown. If we explain the situation with the genetic part of the job; BB or Bb genes can be activated for brown eyes, but the genes for blue eyes must be bb. In other words, in the ancestors of blue-eyed blacks; Both parents must have the b version of both genes.
Sources: Travel Noire, The Tech
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