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Journal of Heredity Advance Access published online on July 30, 2009
Journal of Heredity, doi:10.1093/jhered/esp059
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© The American Genetic Association. 2009. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

The Genetic Basis of Melanism in the Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)

Helen McRobie, Alison Thomas, and Jo Kelly

From the Department of Life Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge CB1 1PT, UK (McRobie) and the Department of Life Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge CB1 1PT, UK (Kelly and Thomas)

Address correspondence to Helen McRobie at the address above, or e-mail: helen.mcrobie{at}anglia.ac.uk.

The black squirrel is a melanic variant of the gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis). We found 3 coat color variants in the gray squirrel: the wild-type gray, a jet-black, and a brown–black phenotype. These 3 morphs are due to varying distributions of eumelanin and phaeomelanin pigment in hairs. The melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) plays a central role in regulating eumelanin and phaeomelanin production. We sequenced the MC1R gene for all 3 coat color phenotypes and found a 24 base-pair deletion. The gray phenotype was homozygous for the wild-type allele E+, the jet-black phenotype was homozygous for the MC1R-{Delta}24 allele EB, and the brown–black phenotype was heterozygous for the E+ and EB alleles. We conclude that melanism in gray squirrels is associated with the MC1R-{Delta}24 EB allele at amino acid positions 87–94 and that this allele is incompletely dominant to the wild-type allele. We predict that the MC1R-{Delta}24 EB allele encodes a constitutively active or hyperactive receptor.

Key Words: gray squirrel • MC1R • melanocortin 1 receptor • melanism • Sciurus carolinensis

Corresponding Editor: William Modi

Received June 28, 2009
Revised June 28, 2009
Accepted June 29, 2009


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