The Belt mutation in pigs is an allele at the Dominant white (I/KIT) locus. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • A white belt is a common coat color phenotype in pigs and is determined by a dominant allele (Be). Here we present the result of a genome scan performed using a Hampshire (Belt)/Pietrain (non-Belt) backcross segregating for the white belt trait. We demonstrate that Belt maps to the centromeric region of pig Chromosome (Chr) 8 harboring the Dominant white (I/KIT) locus. Complete cosegregation between Belt and a single nucleotide polymorphism in the KIT gene was observed. Another potential candidate gene, the endothelin receptor type A gene (EDNRA), was excluded as it was assigned to a different region (SSC8q21) by FISH analysis. We argue that Belt is a regulatory KIT mutation on the basis of comparative data on mouse KIT mutants and our previous sequence analysis of the KIT coding sequence from a Hampshire pig. Quantitative PCR analysis revealed that Belt is not associated with a KIT duplication, as is the case for the Patch and Dominant white alleles. Thus, Belt is a fourth allele at the Dominant white locus, and we suggest that it is denoted I(Be).

published proceedings

  • Mamm Genome

altmetric score

  • 4.35

author list (cited authors)

  • Giuffra, E., Evans, G., Trnsten, A., Wales, R., Day, A., Looft, H., Plastow, G., & Andersson, L.

citation count

  • 64

complete list of authors

  • Giuffra, E||Evans, G||Törnsten, A||Wales, R||Day, A||Looft, H||Plastow, G||Andersson, L

publication date

  • December 1999