Egyptian Maus have spots. (Photo credit: Mordolff via Getty Images)
Leopards, cheetahs and Egyptian maus – many cats have gorgeous spots. While others, like tigers, have stripes and lions have no discernible patterns. But how exactly do cats form their spots?
Scientists don't have a definitive answer to this question, but they have found many clues.
“We don’t know why some cats have spots and others have stripes,” Dr. Greg Barsh, a professor emeritus of genetics and pediatrics at Stanford University, told Live Science. However, researchers have identified two genes that influence the size and shape of spots and stripes in both domestic and wild cats.
Domestic cats with one or two normal copies of the Taqpep gene have stripes, Barsh and colleagues reported in a 2012 paper published in Science. But according to the same paper, as Live Science previously noted, cats with mutations in both copies of the gene (one from each parent) have spotted or curly fur.
Taqpep mutations cause the characteristic tabby patterns of cats, Leslie Lyons, a geneticist at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine, told Live Science.
Taqpep mutations can also alter spots — at least in cheetahs. Cheetahs are known for their black spots on a tan background. But “king cheetahs,” which have mutations in both copies of the Taqpep gene, have large, spotted patterns, according to a 2012 paper. Along their backs, the spots form stripes.
King cheetahs have spots that connect into stripes.
Although spotted domestic cats do not appear to have stripes, they appear to have a normal version of Taqpep, according to Eduardo Eiziric, a professor of genetics at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil. In a study published in the journal Genetics in 2010, he crossed a spotted domestic cat with another spotted one.
Eizirik and his team concluded that the spotted cat he started with, an Egyptian Mau, must have had the normal Taqpep gene, since some of its offspring showed stripes. The team also speculated that one or more other genes in the spotted cat might be disrupting the stripe pattern that Taqpep normally causes, turning them into spots. However, it is not yet known what those other genes are, he noted.
Another gene that appears to influence spotting, Barsh said,
Sourse: www.livescience.com
