The gene had eluded researchers for years.
, and we’ve likely bred our feline companions for just as long. But while breeders have long known how to pair animals for a desired fur coat pattern, like tabby stripes, the answer to how those patterns emerge from a biological standpoint has long evaded scientists.
. “We think this is really the first glimpse into what the molecules might be” that steer the patterning process.Dkk4 variation, the team found, leads to different fur patterns. Mutations in the gene occur in Abyssinian cats, yielding their characteristic shorter, thinner strokes of color in a fur pattern known as “ticked.”The New York Times.
Domestic cats are a useful model to study and investigate color patterns since they’re widely accessible, and there is a plethora of genomic information about them, the study authors write. They also mention that the kinds of coats they looked at represented just a “fraction of the pattern diversity that exists among domestic cat breeds.”
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