Genome analysis identifies the mutant genes for common industrial Silverblue and Hedlund white coat colours in American mink

Abstract

The fur colour of American mink (Neovison vison) involves over 35 traits, but only three of these have been linked to specific genes. Despite being the most popular, coat colours Silverblue and Hedlund white remain uncharacterized genetically. The former is the first genetic mutant of fur colour identified in minks, while the latter is a commercially valuable phenotype that can be dyed easily. Here, we performed the whole genome sequencing for two American mink breeds with Silverblue and Hedlund white coats. We identified mutations in splice donor sites of genes coding melanophilin (MLPH) and microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) that regulate melanosome transport and neural-crest-derived melanocyte development, respectively. Both mutations cause mRNA splicing impairments that lead to a shift in open reading frames of MLPH and MITF. We conclude that our data should be useful for tracking economically valuable fur traits in mink breeding programs to contribute to global fur production.

Genome analysis of American minks reveals link of mutations in Ras-related protein-38 gene to Moyle brown coat phenotype

“…The resulting genome coverages were × 9 and × 40, respectively. We also used whole genome sequencing data of 3 standard dark brown (the mean genome coverage is × 8) and 3 Silverblue minks (the mean genome coverage is × 5) from our previous study 8 (Supplementary Table 1).…”

“…Our study adds the RAB38 gene to the list of genes with identified mutations which were associated with different mink fur colour phenotypes 4 – 8 and provides valuable data that contribute to improving global mink fur production via selective breeding programs.…”

“…More than one century of artificial selection of the American mink resulted in a wide spectrum of colour variation 2 , 3 . Only 6 of the greater than 30 mutations affecting fur colour have been linked to specific DNA mutations 4 – 8 .…”

A Stop-Gain Mutation within MLPH Is Responsible for the Lilac Dilution Observed in Jacob Sheep

“…We also evaluated the predicted impact of these variants using SNPEff and the NCBI Ovis aries annotation release 102 [21]. Based on previous work in other domestic species [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16], we focused our investigation on variants within MLPH. Variants within and surrounding MLPH (Oar_v4.0: OAR1:3,383,028-3,478,858) were filtered to be homozygous alternate in the dilute case, heterozygous in the known carrier, and homozygous reference in the sixteen non-dilute non-Jacob samples.…”

“…Until now, no dilute phenotypes in sheep or goats have been associated with any specific molecular variants. Dilute phenotypes observed in chickens (OMIA #001445-9031) [6], dogs (OMIA #000031-9615) [7][8][9], rabbits (OMIA #000031-9986) [10][11][12], cats (OMIA #000031-9685) [13], American minks (000031-452646) [14,15], and Belgian Blue cattle (OMIA #000031-9913) [16] have all been linked to variants within the melanophilin gene (MLPH). Therefore, MLPH was the most promising candidate gene to investigate for variants contributing to the dilute phenotype in Jacob sheep.…”