Cletus Finley's Job Interview...

Beverly said he could talk and I'll be darned!!!! He can!!!

Ever wonder about....

the feline genome?

You'll either be fascinated or fast asleep! This is the late, great
Patrick above. We'll be doing his genes later in this blog.

I used to have a stunningly beautiful, tri-coloured cat. It was long ago and I think my mother has her photos. She had black, white and orange patches. She was a little crazy and would have been a good example of how gene inheritance works. It's quite complicated but it's pretty cool when you understand it all. After reading this, you can try and work out what genes your own cat(s) has(have.)

OK, so lets think about genes and inheritance. We all know that animals (including humans) get half their genes from their mom and half from their dad, right? Our genes decide pretty much everything about us and in cats, genes decide what color their fur will be. Now, like humans, cats have two copies of most genes (one from dad, one from mom). The combined effects of these two genes determine whether our eyes are blue, whether we have red hair, etc. etc.

Now, there aren't two copies of every gene. To explain this we need to think about gender (not orientation) chromosomes. Gender chromosomes decide whether a baby (of any species) will be a girl or a boy. You always get an X chromosome from your mother but you can get an X or a Y from the father. So half of all babies will end up with two X's and the other half will have an X and a Y. XX=girl, XY=boy. It just happens that the Y chromosome is very little and is missing lots of the genes that are on the X. So while girls have two copies of all the genes found on the X chromosome, boys only have one copy as they only have one X chromosome.

So back to the fabulous felines. Most of the genes involved in deciding what a cat's coat will look like are found on the autosomes (normal chromosomes that have nothing to do with gender). However, one of the color genes is found on the X chromosome. This gene is the orange gene. It can come in two forms. I should explain at this point that not all genes are created equal. Sometimes one gene is dominant, this means that it will overrule whatever the other gene is trying to do. We call the other gene recessive and it only gets a say if it is partnered with another recessive gene that isn't strong enough to over rule it. So we call the dominant form of the orange gene O (a big O) and this gene tries to make a cat orange. The recessive version of the gene is called o (a little o) and this makes the cat black or brown depending on the actions of another gene which we'll talk about later.

So, male cats can either have O or o, and will be orange or black/brown. Female cats have two copies of the orange gene and can be OO (orange), oo (black). To complicate matters, females can also be Oo. This means they have both versions of the gene. Now, I know I said that O could overrule o. So why aren't these cats all orange? Well, what happens is that during development of the embryo one of the X chromosomes gets turned off in each cell and the genes on this chromosome don't get to do anything. So different areas of the cat have different X chromosomes turned on and this gives them the patchwork effect. Where the O is turned on, they will be orange and where the o is turned on, they will be black/brown. You never get this happening in male cats as they have only one X chromosome and this is switched on in every cell.

So that answers the original question but there is more to making a cat's coat than just these "O" genes. There are lots of other colors other than orange/red, black, brown and tortoiseshell.

We'll start with the white masking gene, W/w. This prevents the pigment cells from developing properly and can prevent them from coloring the cat's fur. All cats, male and female, have two copies of this gene. Cats that are WW or Ww will be white, as the white version of the gene is dominant. Cats that are ww will have color.

Next we have the white spotting gene, S/s. This gene causes patches of the cat to be white and it is turned on in different cells, leading to different cats having different markings. If cats are SS or Ss, they will have white markings. SS leads to more white than Ss. If they are ss they won't have any white at all.

Then there is the browning gene, B/b. This is the gene that makes a cat black or brown- I mentioned it earlier. It only gets a say in a cat's color if it is not orange. So if a cat has the o version of the orange gene, the browning gene plays a role in deciding if the cat will be black or brown. B makes the cat black and b makes it brown. B is the dominant gene and therefore cats with BB and Bb will be black. Only cats with bb can be brown.

The dense pigment genes, D/d, decides how diluted the colour will be. DD and Dd make the colour dense but dd will dilute it. So a black cat becomes gray and an orange cat becomes cream colored.

The long hair gene, L/l, decides whether a cat is longhaired. LL and Ll give a cat short hair and ll gives a cat long hair.

A gene called the agouti gene, A/a, varies the amount of pigment found in each hair. The pigment is dense at the top and then fades towards the root. AA and Aa make a cat agouti and aa makes it non-agouti. Cats which are only one colour all over are aa. The agouti gene is involved in cats which have tabby markings.

The tabby gene decides which hairs will be solid in colour and which will be agouti, leading to the cat either having stripes or blotches. All cats have some sort of tabby pattern but you only see it when they are also agouti. Ta is the ticked tabby gene, which gives no pattern on the coat but makes individual hairs vary in color along their length, t is the mackerel tabby gene, which makes the cat stripy, and tb is the classic tabby gene, this makes the pattern swirly rather than striped and often leads to swirls that look like marble cake. TaTa or Tat or Tatb gives a stripy cat, tt or ttb gives a stripy cat and tbtb gives a swirly cat.

Now on to Patrick's genetic breakdown:

- He was orange so he had the O gene (He was a he, so he had TWO copies of the orange gene).
- He was Orange, not cream, so he had the D version of the dense pigment gene.
- His fur wasn't just one colour and his hairs got lighter towards the roots, so he was agouti and must have been AA or Aa.
- He was more stripy than blotchy so he has to be ttb .
- He was long haired so he has to be ll.
- He was colored so he must have the recessive white masking gene and must be ww.
- Finally, he had some white markings so he must have had the dominant white spotting gene. He was probably Ss as he didn't have much white.

This also works for dogs (although not impossible, I don't believe I've ever seen a TaTa, Tat, tatb, tt or ttb (stripy- or swirly-patterned dog), so map your pooches' genes!

(Dang! This was FUN!!!)

Resurrection, Rob Pepper - 2005

Crucifixion, Salvadore Dali - Spain 1954

The Last Supper, John Coburn - Australia

Oooooooooohhhhhh......

I'm a research F I E N D ! ! !

Forgive me...I can't help it. This Bible ----------------------------> belongs to my friend Rob. He had told me about it and then I saw it in our Priest Associate's office at church. I got wild eyed about it, so he offered to let me take it home to have a good look.

Well, I can't just have a good look, I have to strip it down to it's origins and find out everything about it. It has been exciting to find out new things and to get to know it.

So as not to bore my readers, the only thing I'll tell you about it is that it's 126 years old and my current object of affection.

My only sadness is that the research is coming to an end and I'll have to clean my house.

This is why I haven't blogged. . .