TICA Genetics Committee Report (January 2024)
This is the first Genetics committee report on recent scientific research in genetics that relate to our cats. As it is the first we will be including some information from recent years, not just the past calendar year. This cannot be completely comprehensive as genomic technology is causing the information we have to increase enormously quickly, and writing an entire book every year is not really possible. Instead major findings relevant to the cat fancy will be presented, with background hopefully sufficient for interested non-geneticists.
A study of solid white “Van” cats from Turkey added more evidence to support that white cats (non-pointed) with two blue eyes are indeed much more likely to be deaf (25%) than those with amber eyes (6%), with odd-eyes being intermediate, 12% deaf (Almac and Kaya, 2023).
References:
Abitbol, M; Dargar, T and Gache, 2022, “Golden cats: The story goes on”
ANIMAL GENETICS 53 (4) , pp.543-545 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/age.13215
Abitbol, M; Dargar, T and Gache, V. Oct. 2022 “Golden cats: A never-ending story!”
ANIMAL GENETICS 53 (5) , pp.715-718
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/age.13228
Almaç Çelik, F and Kaya, A. 2023 “Investigations on the incidence of deafness in Van cats and its distribution by eye color” ANKARA UNIVERSITESI VETERINER FAKULTESI DERGISI Volume: 70 Issue: 2, 203 – 212, 24.03.2023 https://doi.org/10.33988/auvfd.975163
Beauvois, H; de Citres, CD; (…); Abitbol, M, 2021. “Siberian cats help in solving part of the mystery surrounding golden cats” ANIMAL GENETICS 52 (4) , pp.482-491
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/age.13076
Kaelin (pre-print.) “Ancestry dynamics and trait selection in a designer cat breed.” Christopher B. Kaelin1,2, Kelly A. McGowan1,2, Anthony D. Hutcherson1, John M. Delay1, Gregory S. Barsh1,2* https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.12.12.520105v1
