Pigmentation genetics in dogs

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Tremendous advances have been made in finding mutations that affect visible traits, diseases and even behaviors in many mammalian species. For the most part, genes are typically studied in isolation and a mutation is ultimately identified which alters a trait in some measurable way. However, we all realize that most traits are affected by many genes, especially complex traits such as health, behavior, and even coat color. Trying to understand how genes interact to jointly affect a trait is the focus of this grant. We have chosen to study genes involved in coat color and pattern in dogs. Many privately owned dogs, and therefore their owners, will be involved in this research. Our results will be published in the scientific journals but also on our website (http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/dogcolors.html) and in dog magazines and breed newsletters. We hope to be able to begin to understand how multiple genes, each with a mutation will cause a phenotype, or coat color in this case, that is different than if only one of the genes has a mutation. For example, the merle pattern in dogs is caused by a SINE insertion type of mutation in the gene SILV and is considered a dominant trait. However, in the presence of an e/e genotype at the MC1R locus which causes red coat color, the merle pattern is not expressed. In some breeds such as Dachshunds, an owner can inadvertently breed a red dog to a merle dog and pups that are homozygous merle could result. Such pups are typically deaf and sometimes also blind. During the course of our research we will try to understand how these mutations interact in producing these coat colors and their effects on the dog. However we will also try to understand how and why they interact, at the level of the function of the genes.