Han Jae-Ik, Yang Hyun, Jeung Eui-Bae, Na Ki-Jeong
Laboratories of Veterinary Laboratory Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju 361-763, South Korea.
Vet Dermatol. 2012 Jun;23(3):187-e37. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3164.2012.01036.x. Epub 2012 Mar 2.
The melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) gene plays a key role in determining coat colour in mammals by controlling the proportion of eumelanin and pheomelanin granules. Wild raccoon dogs have a mixed coat colour, with black to brown and grey hairs.
HYPOTHESIS/OBJECTIVES: The study was performed to identify the cause of the variant yellow coat colour in a wild raccoon dog.
A wild raccoon dog that showed coat colour change to yellow and four wild-type raccoon dogs that showed normal coat colour were included.
To identify the cause of the variant yellow coat colour, we examined the sequence of the MC1R gene and its expression at the mRNA and protein levels.
The coding region of the MC1R gene of this raccoon dog comprised 954 bp, the same as for wild-type raccoon dogs and domestic dogs. By comparing the gene with that in the wild-type raccoon dog, a 2 bp deletion was detected in the 5'-untranslated region, positioned 152 bp upstream of the start codon. However, there was no significant difference in the mRNA expression level. The yellow raccoon dog revealed a significantly decreased MC1R protein level compared with the wild-type raccoon dogs, indicating an increase in pheomelanin synthesis.
These results suggest that the variant coat colour in the yellow raccoon dog was associated with decreased MC1R function.
黑皮质素1受体（MC1R）基因通过控制真黑素和褐黑素颗粒的比例，在决定哺乳动物毛色方面起关键作用。野生貉的毛色混合，有黑色至棕色和灰色毛发。
假设/目的：本研究旨在确定一只野生貉毛色变为黄色的原因。
纳入一只毛色变为黄色的野生貉和四只毛色正常的野生型貉。
为确定毛色变为黄色的原因，我们检测了MC1R基因的序列及其在mRNA和蛋白质水平的表达。
这只貉的MC1R基因编码区由954个碱基对组成，与野生型貉和家犬相同。将该基因与野生型貉的基因进行比较，在起始密码子上游152个碱基对处的5'非翻译区检测到2个碱基对的缺失。然而，mRNA表达水平没有显著差异。与野生型貉相比，黄色貉的MC1R蛋白水平显著降低，表明褐黑素合成增加。
这些结果表明，黄色貉的毛色变异与MC1R功能降低有关。
