The lavender plumage colour in Japanese quail is associated with a complex mutation in the region of MLPH that is related to differences in growth, feed consumption and body temperature.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The lavender phenotype in quail is a dilution of both eumelanin and phaeomelanin in feathers that produces a blue-grey colour on a wild-type feather pattern background. It has been previously demonstrated by intergeneric hybridization that the lavender mutation in quail is homologous to the same phenotype in chicken, which is caused by a single base-pair change in exon 1 of MLPH.

Results

In this study, we have shown that a mutation of MLPH is also associated with feather colour dilution in quail, but that the mutational event is extremely different. In this species, the lavender phenotype is associated with a non-lethal complex mutation involving three consecutive overlapping chromosomal changes (two inversions and one deletion) that have consequences on the genom

SUBMITTER: Bed'hom B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3484014 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature