In other species: horse , indicine cattle (zebu)

Categories: Pigmentation phene

Links to possible relevant human trait(s) and/or gene(s) in OMIM: 604204 (gene)

Mendelian trait/disorder: unknown

Disease-related: no

Species-specific description: Senczuk et al. (2020): " Worldwide, several breeds share peculiar coat color features such as the presence of a fawn pigmentation of the calf at birth, turning over time to grey, and sexual dichromatism."

Molecular basis: Senczuk et al. (2020) studied "fifteen grey cattle breeds (Chianina, Corsa, Croatian Podolian, Garfagnina, Gascon, Guelmoise, Hungarian Grey, Italian Podolian, Marchigiana, Maremmana, Piedmontese, Romagnola, Turkish Grey, Tyrolean Grey, and Ukrainian Grey) and four “non-grey” cattle breeds (Angus, Charolais, Limousin, and Holstein)." They concluded that "Many of the candidate genes detected in differentially selected regions had pleiotropic effects, and altogether they were implicated in all of the three principal stages in pigmentation, i.e., melanocyte development, melanogenesis, and pigment trafficking/transfer, highlighting the complex nature of the grey phenotype in cattle. We cannot exclude that the putative selection signatures detected in this study may have captured general differences in the overall architecture and functioning of skin and skin appendages between grey cattle breeds and the reference breeds in addition to more specific differences in coat patterning and pigmentation, which was our specific goal."