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Age-related pigmentation changes in the coats of allophenic mice
The Journal of Heredity
|January 1, 1981
Abstract:
Hair pigmentation and patterns of pigmentation change with age in the coats of BALB/cByJ in equilibrium C57BL/6J allophenic mice. These changes are particularly evident on the dorsum where there is an increase in the proportion of white areas at the expense of agouti and black areas. The most plausible explanation for these changes is that they represent a continuous selection for one of the two genotypes of cells from which the melanoblasts and hair follicles of these animals are derived.
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Lucien Cuénot discovered lethal alleles in 1905 while studying the inheritance of coat color in mice. The agouti gene is responsible for the color of the coat in mice. This gene codes for an agouti-signaling protein, which is responsible for melanin distribution in mammals. The wild-type allele gives rise to gray-brown coat color in mice, while the mutant allele gives rise to yellow coat color. In addition to coat color, the agouti gene is associated with the yellow...

