Yoshida 1

Yuika Yoshida

External Article Review #2: Molars

In an article published by ​Human Biology,​ authors Adrijana Vukelic, Jacob A. Cohen,

Alexis P. Sullivan, and George H. Perry researched the presence and absence of third molars in

humans, as well as the reasoning behind this adaptation. Recent human variation has seen an

increase in individuals who don’t develop their third molars. This is otherwise known as “M3

agenesis”. The authors provide some potential explanations for this evolution, including positive

selection and genetic drift. Observations of human jaw sizes decreasing over the past two million

years serves as the foundation of the positive selection hypothesis. With not enough room for the

third molars to erupt, M3 agenesis might have been a fitness development to protect humans

from third molar impaction and crowding. According to the article, M3 agenesis may also be a

reflection of third molars no longer being necessary due to cultural changes with food

preparation. Modern humans have transitioned their diets to softer foods, so there is less of a

biological need for larger and more numerous teeth. This, possibly combined with a mutation

having to do with smaller teeth, could have resulted in the survival and spread of M3 agenesis

through genetic drift—another popular hypothesis within the field of anthropology also known as

the “probable mutation effect”. Their overall goal was to obtain enough evidence to disprove one

of these unofficial scenarios of neutral evolution.

To figure out if one of these evolutionary scenarios is indeed the reason behind M3

agenesis, the authors performed a genome-wide association study using currently available data.

They decided on a GWAS due to its ability to identify genetic variants associated with a certain

trait, and in this case, that trait is the lack of third molars in modern humans. For their
 Yoshida 2

experiment, they collected data from a sample of 149 Japanese and Korean individuals who were

missing at least one molar tooth. They also set controls for the experiment with 338 individuals

with all M3 teeth present. The data identified that 21, 26, and 30 single-nucleotide

polymorphisms were associated with the agenesis of “one to four M3 from any part of the

mouth, one or two maxillary M3, and one or two mandibular M3.” In terms of testing for the

positive selection theory, they also obtained computed data of 90 random, unrelated individuals

of Asian descent. With this data they found the relationship between the number of tooth

development genes overlapping and the frequency of permutations. They calculated that even by

chance alone, only 0.68 of the M3 agenesis gene would overlap with the tooth development

gene. In the end, the low statistics proved to have no evidence for positive selection having an

effect on genetic regions associated with M3.

From an evolutionary perspective, I found this study interesting and relevant because of

the already great amounts of variation in M3 agenesis among modern human populations. Even

though this study may be viewed as more clinical, having to do with teeth, there’s no denying the

overlap between the medical and anthropological aspects of the research. Genetics seem to play a

part in tooth agnesis. There are already known genes that are responsible for early tooth

development, however, the third molar in particular remains unknown for now. The

indetification of this gene could have the potential to contribute not only to dentistry and

anthropology, but also other fields such as anatomy and medicine. The lack of third molars over

time is an indicator of how we’re adapting to a changing culture where we don’t necessarily need

our molars as much to act as tools. Of course the study concluded that the idea of positive

selection and the probable mutation effect isn’t officially proven to be the reason behind the
 Yoshida 3

higher frequency of M3 agenesis, but it also didn’t officially disprove it. So there’s still a chance

that it could have to do with it being an evolutionary trait to protect ourselves from infections

and complications that are inadvertently caused by the presence of our third molars. It’s an

especially fascinating example of human variation due to how recent these biological changes

are occurring in human populations, again showing how physical anthropology is affecting our

daily lives and not just focusing on the study of ancient predecessors.