Posted by
timothy
on from the no-two-cats-are-alike dept.
bbsguru writes "When Texas A&M researchers announced the first Cloned Kitty about a year ago, everyone expected to see a Multiplicity-style pair of cats by now. Not so! The clone is genetically identical, but in many other ways totally a different cat. This
CNN Story has details."
Re:Nature vs. Nurture
by
ishark
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The coats are different colors. How is this possible?
The color of a cat's coat is a much more complex matter than what it seems. While, of course, genetics applies, there are a lot of "minor" details which are not completely understood. Even in "purebreed" cats you can have a lot of fluctuations in the fur color (there are lots of variations in the "blue" you can see in the Chartreux). While some of them are genetically transferred (and thus selective breeding can enhance/cancel them), for some of them the situation is not so clear, an example being the tortie-shell females (black/red or blue/cream), where the distribution of the color doesn't seem much controllable. From what they show with Cc it also seems that the tabby stripes can show up more or less depending on the individual.
Some more info on the main cat color genes can be found here and even more here.
Like everything else in the news about cloning, the article completely passes over the science.
First, the cat's color pattern was decided by individual skin cells very early in embryonic development. The individual cells multiply, carrying the same color, to become the pattern on the adult cat.
Second, and most notably, calico cats (tortoise shell) carry a color in each sex chromosome - that's why 99.9% of calico cats are female (XX female, although there are some XXY male calicos but they're sterile). Fur color depends on which X chromosome is active, and which one is inactive (curled up, as they say)
So, looking at the picture, you'll notice the clone (cc) has only two colors indicating that it is not only a clone of the donor cat, but a 100% exact genetic clone of ONE cell of the donor cat. The other X chromosome is completely inactive.
That's just my observation from the photo because no news article will ever talk about the science behind the hype.
Slashdot Mirror
The coats are different colors. How is this possible?
The color of a cat's coat is a much more complex matter than what it seems. While, of course, genetics applies, there are a lot of "minor" details which are not completely understood.
Even in "purebreed" cats you can have a lot of fluctuations in the fur color (there are lots of variations in the "blue" you can see in the Chartreux). While some of them are genetically transferred (and thus selective breeding can enhance/cancel them), for some of them the situation is not so clear, an example being the tortie-shell females (black/red or blue/cream), where the distribution of the color doesn't seem much controllable. From what they show with Cc it also seems that the tabby stripes can show up more or less depending on the individual.
Some more info on the main cat color genes can be found here
and even more here.
Like everything else in the news about cloning, the article completely passes over the science.
First, the cat's color pattern was decided by individual skin cells very early in embryonic development. The individual cells multiply, carrying the same color, to become the pattern on the adult cat.
Second, and most notably, calico cats (tortoise shell) carry a color in each sex chromosome - that's why 99.9% of calico cats are female (XX female, although there are some XXY male calicos but they're sterile). Fur color depends on which X chromosome is active, and which one is inactive (curled up, as they say)
So, looking at the picture, you'll notice the clone (cc) has only two colors indicating that it is not only a clone of the donor cat, but a 100% exact genetic clone of ONE cell of the donor cat. The other X chromosome is completely inactive.
That's just my observation from the photo because no news article will ever talk about the science behind the hype.