8 ms·
This is covered at the end the article: > No one previously knew Arhgap36 could affect skin or hair coloration—it is involved in many aspects of embryonic deve
by superb_dev 2y ago
This is covered at the end the article:
> No one previously knew Arhgap36 could affect skin or hair coloration—it is involved in many aspects of embryonic development, and major mutations that affect its function throughout the body would probably kill the animal, Barsh says. But because the deletion mutation appears to only affect Arhgap36 function in melanocytes, cats with the mutation are not only healthy, but also cute.
- ourmandave 2y agoit is involved in many aspects of embryonic development Ugh, you don't find this out by not looking at a lot of cute orange (and non-orange) cat embryos under a microscope. =(
- FollowingTheDao 2y agoThat is just them making sht up. Arhgap36 does not just effect the MC1R receptor. It is GTPase activator for the Rho-type GTPases. And there are a lot of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rho_family_of_GTPases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rho_family_of_GTPases These polymorphisms not diminish GTP totally, it just lowers it.
- quantadev 2y agoIt's more clear to just say "There's no such thing as a gene for a trait", especially since the title of the article says the opposite, and is wrong. That's why I corrected it.
- benatkin 2y agoYou’re arguing semantics. It doesn’t make it more clear. The gene has been shown to have a causation or at least an interesting correlation in orange cat probability. That’s enough for it to say behind which is not very specific, likely chosen deliberately for that property.
- quantadev 2y agoWhat was wrong was the singular form of the word "gene". That means "The Gene", and that's wrong. Richard Dawkins talks about this in his Selfish Gene book. People often say "the gene for this" or "the gene for that" and it's not how things work. But the word "behind" also does imply causation rather than correlation, which is also wrong.