Cat Genetics: Qualitative Traits Flashcards
Qualitative vs. Quantitative
Qualitative:
* Aka Mendelian, single-gene - a quality like a hair type, color, or spot pattern
* Controlled by a few genes (meaning inherited traits)
* Discrete variables
Quantitative:
* Many genes, continuous variables
Main Cat Colors
Only 2 base pigments:
* red/yellow/orange (pheomelanin)
* Black (eumelanin)
Everything else is modification of those
Color: Agouti
Banded hair color
A - agouti
a - non-agouti (solid colored cat - white is an exception)
Black, brown
B - solid black
b - chocolate brown
b^l red brown (cinnamon)
Color points
C, c^b, c^s, c^a, c
C - full color
c^b - Burmese: darker face, fades out
c^s - Siamese: dark points, lighter body
c^a - blue-eyed white: deafness fairly common in these cats
c - albino (pink eyes): rare
Cause of Darker “Points” - in Siamese Cats
- Put Siamese cats in a very cold environment and put insulated vests on them
- Bodies where they had the vests on where white, where they were cold they produced more pigment
- Kittens are born all white bc warm inside the mother
Dilution, Pigment Inhibition
Dilution: recessive
D- intense color
d - dilute color
Pigment Inhibition: dominant
I - pigment inhibition - silver or “smoke” coloring
i - normal pigmentation
Calico
multiple colors
O - orange
o - non-orange
Calicos are sex-linked (carried in the X-chromosome)
Oo - heterozygous will be a calico - mostly always female
Spots
Incompletely dominant
S - white spotting
s - no spotting
Probably several other background genes involved with this
Tabby: T^A, T, t^b
T^A - Abyssinian tabby (sandy looking, sometimes stripes on head or tail)
T - striped (Mackerel) tabby (parallel stripes)
t^b - (blotched) tabby - bullseye stripes
White
W - dominant white
w - presence of color
Crossing 2 white cats won’t necessarily produce white kittens (if there are heterozygous white cats they carry recessive allele)
Hair Type
H - presence of hair
h - hairlessness
L - short hair
l - long hair
Wh - wire hair
wh - normal hair
Folded ear
Fd - folded ears
fd - normal ears (ear stays folded over for life)
American curl (ears curl back)
Dominant mutation - people start selecting
Sphynx
cross of folded ear and curled ear
Manx tail
M - absence of tail
m - normal tail
Mm have manx tails
* M is a homozygous lethal - when cat is homozygous (MM), it will kill the cat usually when it is a developing fetus
* This allele interferes with spine and backbone development (one copy removes the tail, 2 copies will probably interfere w spine)
How can we produce tailless kittens without producing homozygotes?
Take one parent manx and other non-manx
Japanese bobtail
very short tail
Polydactyly
Pd - polydactyly (more than normal # of toes)
pd - normal # of toes
Munchkin, Twisty
- Munchkin - form of dwarfism, legs are not as long as normal cat
- Twisty - front feet and sometimes back feet are not developed right, more plantigrade than digitigrade
Mutations
- Happen spontaneously
- Happen fairly often, but most die out
- May be deletions, additions, etc.
- Not initiated by humans (usually)
- Often considered a negative thing
- Allow for evolution (a way for new alleles to be introduced to a population - genetic variation)
Genetic Conditions General: purebreds, crossbreds
- Many health conditions that have genetic component are breed-specific
Purebreds and Crossbreds
* fewer cats (than dogs) are purebreds
* fewer genetic diseases known in cats
* more genetic diseases in purebreds?
Purebreds and Genetic diseases
Inbreeding
* breeding of closely related individuals
* increases homozygosity
* pros: necessary to solidify breed characteristics
* cons: can increase incidence of phenotypes of deleterious recessive genes (homozygous for genes that you don’t want)
On the other hand, genetic basis (for disease) can be seen when pedigrees (recorded ancestries) are known - so maybe just more noticeable
Hypoallergenic cat
- Allerca Lifestyle Pets company
- Most allergies are to a glycoprotein produced by cat (saliva, sebaceous glands) - NOT THE HAIR, might be on the hair
- Discovered mutation in some cats (genetics)
- Selectively bred these cats (with DNA confirmation)
(Maybe)
Genetics Savings and Clone
Company that will clone your cat
$50K price tag
Take DNA from donor cell, insert into egg, put into female
Cloning Comments Keep in Mind
Very expensive
May take many tries
Not everything is genetic:
* Behavior may be quite different
* Other environmental influences
Glow in the Dark Cats
Lab test
Took a luminescence gene and put into cats
