Categories: Integument (skin) phene

Single-gene trait/disorder: yes

Mode of inheritance: Autosomal recessive

Disease-related: no

Key variant known: yes

Year key variant first reported: 2024

Cross-species summary: Renamed from "Coat colour, glitter" [07/04/2024]

Species-specific description: Glitter is a coat condition that softens hair texture and causes an iridescent sheen to the coat.

Mapping: Kaelin et al. (2024) conducted “a case-control GWAS for glitter. From photographs submitted with DNA samples, [the authors] could confidently distinguish 359 glitter and 179 non-glitter individuals among cats genotyped by lcWGS-based imputation and 144 glitter and 82 non-glitter individuals among cats genotyped by RAD-seq. Both datasets identified a broad, 2.47-Mb association interval (chrD2: 77,904,283–80,383,333) … .”

Molecular basis: Kaelin et al. (2024) “discovered a 585-bp cat-specific Endogenous Retroviral Long Terminal Repeat (ERV1-3_FCa-type LTR) element insertion that was a strong candidate … . The LTR insertion site (chrD2: 79,707,475–79,707,478, felCat9) is defined by a 4-bp flanking direct repeat that is situated 287-bp upstream of an evolutionarily conserved Fgfr2 super-enhancer (Khan and Zhang 2014). Among 57 domestic cats for whom high-coverage WGS was available, the LTR insertion was only present in Bengal cats and two additional breeds, Egyptian Mau and Toyger, in which glitter was introduced through shared ancestry with a Bengal cat progenitor.”

Breeds: Bengal (Cat) (VBO_0100040), Egyptian Mau (Cat) (VBO_0100090), Toyger (Cat) (VBO_0100245).
Breeds in which the phene has been documented. (If a likely causal variant has been documented for the phene, see the variant table breeds in which the variant has been reported).

Associated gene: