Department of Veterinary Public Health and Animal Husbandry, College of Veterinary Medicine, King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia.
The Camel Research Center, King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia.
J Hered. 2018 Aug 24;109(6):700-706. doi: 10.1093/jhered/esy024.
Pigmentation in mammals is primarily determined by the distribution of eumelanin and pheomelanin, the ratio of which is mostly controlled by the activity of melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) and agouti signaling protein (ASIP) genes. Using 91 animals from 10 Arabian camel populations, that included the 4 predominant coat color phenotypes observed in the dromedary (light brown, dark brown, black, and white), we investigated the effects of the MC1R and ASIP sequence variants and identified candidate polymorphisms associated with coat color variation. In particular, we identified a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), found in the coding region of MC1R (901C/T), linked to the white coat color, whereas a 1-bp deletion (23delT/T) and a SNP (25G/A) in exon 2 of ASIP are associated with both black and dark-brown coat colors. Our results also indicate support that the light-brown coat color is likely the ancestral coat color for the dromedary. These sequence variations at the MC1R and ASIP genes represent the first documented evidence of candidate polymorphisms associated with Mendelian traits in the dromedary.
哺乳动物的色素沉着主要由真黑素和褐黑素的分布决定，其比例主要由黑素皮质素 1 受体 (MC1R) 和刺鼠相关蛋白 (ASIP) 基因的活性控制。我们使用来自 10 个阿拉伯骆驼种群的 91 只动物，其中包括在单峰驼中观察到的 4 种主要毛色表型（浅棕色、深棕色、黑色和白色），研究了 MC1R 和 ASIP 序列变异的影响，并鉴定了与毛色变异相关的候选多态性。特别是，我们在 MC1R 的编码区发现了一个单核苷酸多态性 (SNP) (901C/T)，与白色毛色有关，而 ASIP 外显子 2 中的 1 个碱基缺失 (23delT/T) 和 SNP (25G/A) 与黑色和深棕色毛色有关。我们的研究结果还表明，浅棕色毛色可能是单峰驼的原始毛色。这些 MC1R 和 ASIP 基因的序列变异代表了与单峰驼孟德尔性状相关的候选多态性的首次有记录证据。
