Journal of Heredity Advance Access originally published online on December 5, 2006
Journal of Heredity 2007 98(1):84-87; doi:10.1093/jhered/esl053
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Brief Communications |
Chinese White Rongchang Pig Does Not Have the Dominant White Allele of KIT but Has the Dominant Black Allele of MC1R
From the Key Laboratory for Animal Biotechnology of Jiangxi Province and the Ministry of Agriculture of China, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang 330045, P. R. China (Lai, Ren, Ai, Ding, Ma, Chen, Guo, and Huang); and Chongqing Pig Breeding Science Research Institute, Chongqing 402460, P. R. China (Zeng). Daiqin Zeng is now at the Institute of Fruit Plant, Chongqing Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Chongqing 402260, P. R. China
Address correspondence to L. Huang at the address above, or e-mail: lushenghuang{at}hotmail.com.
The mast/stem cell growth factor receptor (KIT) and melanocortin receptor 1 (MC1R) mutations are responsible for coat color phenotypes in domestic pigs. Rongchang is a Chinese indigenous pig breed with a white coat color phenotype. To investigate the genetic variability of the KIT and MC1R genes and their possible association with the coat color phenotype in this breed, a gene duplication and splice mutation of KIT were diagnosed in a sample of 93 unrelated Rongchang animals. The results show that Rongchang pigs have a single copy of KIT without the splice mutation at the first nucleotide of intron 17, indicating that the dominant white I allele of KIT is not responsible for their white phenotype. The KIT mRNA and MC1R coding sequences were also determined in this breed. Three putative amino acid substitutions were found in the KIT gene between Rongchang and Western white pigs, their association with the Rongchang white phenotype remains unknown. For the MC1R gene, Rongchang pigs were demonstrated to have the same dominant black allele (ED1) as other Chinese breeds, supporting the previous conclusion that Chinese and Western pigs have independent domestication origin. We also clarified that the Rongchang white phenotype was recessive to nonwhite color phenotypes. Our results provide a good starting point for the identification of the mutations underlying the white coat color in Rongchang pigs.