genetics

[mckellar007]

i asked this question the other day in a thread and it got lost along the way, so i thought i would try again and hopefully this time get some answers.

if you breed, and albino blue tounge to a charcoal blue tounge what would you get? a bunch of het for both genes? super morphs(albino charcoals striped black and white)? or would the two together cancel each other out and just get a bunch of normal bluetounges(this would happen if they are both mutations of the same gene)? or would you get a litter of just charcoal or just albino, whichever is more dominant?

hope someone can enlighten me.

 

[itbites]

Thats a hard one to answer mostly because I am blonde lol. Very interesting question though

 

[mckellar007]

yes its hard, its been puzzling me for a couple of days now, i would guess they would cancell each other out, otherwise wouldnt people be breeding them to get double hets and having both in the same clutch?

 

[ludos]

Which genes are dominant and which are recessive? Are the two genes linked or independent?

The albinism gene is obviously recessive, so the albino phenotype would have to have both of the recessive genes:
R r
R
r x

But the charcoal gene I have not heard of. It could be co-dominant or also recessive and possibly placed somewhere completely different in the genome that it wouldn't have any interaction with the gene for albinism and operate independently of it.

In humans the genes for pigmentation are spread throughout different parts of the genome and are kind-of co-dominant allowing for black-white mating to allow a gradient that exists between. That said however, if the child received had Rr-Rr parents and got rr then they would exhibit the albinism phenotype regardless of their parents skin colour.

Hope that helps!

If you find out more and want some help PM me.

 

[mckellar007]

i know the gene for charcoal(pure black) is recessive, and so is the gene for albinism. im not quiet sure weather they are on the same gene or weather they are different mutations of the same gene. which i am trying to figure out. if however they are seperate on the same gene, them what would offsprong that is carrying both look like? all grey? normal?

 

[Sdaji]

DNA sort of works like computer code, right? The DNA is a program, stuff reads it and makes a product, so if you have one program saying 'make lots of melanin' and another program saying 'don't make any melanin' surely the babies could never be made and after copulating the female would just sit there saying "Program error, please consult your local dealer" or "System error, click here to send error report".

 

[itbites]

Hehe sdaji your a laugh & a half

 

[mckellar007]

but then how would that work with hets? theres one saying make melanin, and the other saying dont make it, but there are still het young. thats why its confusing me. and has anyone tried yet?

 

[slacker]

i know the gene for charcoal(pure black) is recessive, and so is the gene for albinism. im not quiet sure weather they are on the same gene or weather they are different mutations of the same gene. which i am trying to figure out. if however they are seperate on the same gene, them what would offsprong that is carrying both look like? all grey? normal?

If I'm not mistaken it's only known that albinism is recessive at this point and it is actually suspected that the hypermelanistic trait may be co-dominant.

As to your actual question, I have no idea. I'm not sure that anyone can conclusively answer that at this point. I think we'll have to see what happens in the future when someone gets around to producing and subsequently pairing double-hets.

 

[Sdaji]

but then how would that work with hets? theres one saying make melanin, and the other saying dont make it, but there are still het young. thats why its confusing me. and has anyone tried yet?

*sigh*

Okay, jokes aside, albinism is recessive, so if you're het for albinism it means nothing to your phenotype. "Charcoal" or whatever they're calling the blackish Blue-tongueds is a codominant condition (not recessive). A double het will look the same as a 'charcoal' het. Before anyone asks, apparently it's difficult to pick a het from a normal until they've grown and aged a bit which is presumably why 'possible hets' are being sold.

No, charcoal and albino are not different alleles of the same gene, they're alleles of two different genes.

The albinism in the Blue-tongueds is actually quite unusual for reasons I'll openly discuss in about 18 months, possibly sooner. No, I'm not staying quiet about it due to my own Blue-tongueds (I don't keep any, albino or normal) and no, I've never bought any other albinoes. I'm not entirely sure what an albino 'charcoal' Blue-tongued would look like, I'm guessing it would probably look like the other albino Blue-tongueds, but I suspect it just might look a little different. You won't have to wait for long, several people are already working on it. One thing I'm sure about it that they're not going to look quite like what you'd usually get when you make the albino version of a black reptile, and only partly because the blacks are not quite black.

 

[mckellar007]

thank you sdaji, thats cleared up all i need to know. and any confusion i had is now gone.