Characteristic of modern domesticated animals is their large coat colour variation, which is not found in any of their wild ancestors. Understanding the inheritance of coat colour is important not only from the aspect of understanding basic scientific principles, as coat colour and patterns are often associated with other phenotypic properties/ diseases. To understand the origin and inheritance of different coat colours and patterns, we must examine the effect of coat-colour-associated genes on development and migration of melanocytes, synthesis of pigments and intracellular pigment distribution. In this paper we have collected 13 genes involved in coat coloration and their pleiotropic effects. Using the bioinformatics methods, we found the TYRP1 variant associated with coat colour in dogs. We also analysed the consequences of DNA changes. When examining the literature, we discovered that knowledge on the pleiotropic effects of these mutations is often incomplete, despite the fact that coat colour patterns are sometimes a phenotypic marker for some diseases or other phenotypic traits.
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