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• Albino gorilla eye color skin#

Color-producing structures include ordered keratin matrices in bird feathers, chitin layers in butterfly wings, and purine crystals in the skin of fish, amphibians, and reptiles. Common pigments include brown-to-black melanin, present throughout the animal kingdom, and yellow-to-red carotenoids and pteridines, common in birds, reptiles, and lower vertebrates. Pigments absorb light, whereas structural colors are created when light is reflected by the nanoscale geometry of a tissue. Ĭolors are produced through a combination of chemical pigments and physical structures (structural colors). Color patterns have also been targeted by artificial selection to create novel and fanciful color patterns in domestic animals. Among the many functions of color are to camouflage animals to their surroundings, protect tissues from ultraviolet radiation, warn predators of poisons, and provide signals for mating and social communication.

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.Ĭolor patterns are distinctive and beautiful features of many animal species. Brickley Award from Eastern Michigan University to HSS and an Undergraduate Research Stimulus Program Award and a Don Brown and Meta Hellwig Undergraduate Research Award from Eastern Michigan University to ARB. DNA sequences are available from GenBank, under accession numbers MZ269492-MZ269502.įunding: This work was supported by a Faculty Research Fellowship and James H. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Received: Accepted: OctoPublished: October 19, 2022Ĭopyright: © 2022 Brown et al. PLoS ONE 17(10):Įditor: Xiaolin Bi, Nantong University, CHINA (2022) A community-science approach identifies genetic variants associated with three color morphs in ball pythons ( Python regius). Our study is one of the first to identify genetic variants associated with color morphs in ball pythons and shows that pet samples recruited from the community can provide a resource for genetic studies in this species.Ĭitation: Brown AR, Comai K, Mannino D, McCullough H, Donekal Y, Meyers HC, et al. The Ultramel morph is associated with a missense variant and a putative deletion in the gene TYRP1. The Lavender Albino morph is associated with a deletion in the gene OCA2. We report that the Albino morph is associated with missense and non-coding variants in the gene TYR. To identify genetic variants causing each morph, we recruited shed skins of pet ball pythons via social media, extracted DNA from the skins, and searched for putative loss-of-function variants in homologs of genes controlling melanin production in other vertebrates. These morphs-Albino, Lavender Albino, and Ultramel-show a loss of melanin in the skin and eyes, ranging from severe (Albino) to moderate (Lavender Albino) to mild (Ultramel).

Here we use a community-science approach to investigate the genetics of three color morphs affecting production of the pigment melanin. Color morphs in ball pythons ( Python regius) provide a unique and largely untapped resource for understanding the genetics of coloration in reptiles.