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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Behold The Pale Horse: The Genetics of Color and Cancer Even though I have always been a fan of black horses, my heart did leap at the sight of the noble Shadowfax racing towards Gandalf in response to his call in the Lord of the Rings. White horses have symbolized purity throughout most ages and cultures, so political leaders have often been portrayed astride a white horse. Interestingly, these so-called white horses are actually Gray. White horses have pink skin and blue eyes. Gray horses are typically born black, bay or chestnut in color but rapidly lose all hair pigmentation as they age, ending up completely white by the time they are eight years old. Meanwhile, their skin remains black and their eyes are typically dark, giving a silvery or grey cast to their seeming snowy-whiteness. This popular coat color results from an autosomal dominant mutation to a gene that was just identified by a research team at Uppsala University in Sweden. Unfortunately, this coat color is also linked to an increased risk of developing a specific form of cancer: melanoma. Thus, this finding has important implications for human medical research. ... Even though the Gray mutation doesn't affect the structure of the proteins themselves, it provides a beautiful example of the regulatory power of mutations as a major underlying mechanism for phenotypic diversity within and between species. These results show that only one copy of the Gray mutation is necessary to exert profound molecular effects upon the regulation of two neighboring genes. "It is very likely that regulatory mutations like the one we found in these white horses constitute the dominating class of mutations explaining differences between breeds of domestic animals as well as between species like humans and chimpanzee," speculates Andersson. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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