Epistatic and combinatorial effects of pigmentary gene mutations in the domestic pigeon.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the molecular basis of phenotypic diversity is a critical challenge in biology, yet we know little about the mechanistic effects of different mutations and epistatic relationships among loci that contribute to complex traits. Pigmentation genetics offers a powerful model for identifying mutations underlying diversity and for determining how additional complexity emerges from interactions among loci. Centuries of artificial selection in domestic rock pigeons (Columba livia) have cultivated tremendous variation in plumage pigmentation through the combined effects of dozens of loci. The dominance and epistatic hierarchies of key loci governing this diversity are known through classical genetic studies, but their molecular identities and the mechanisms of their genetic interactio

SUBMITTER: Domyan ET 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3990261 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature