A new cat that has the usual pattern of fur of the black and white tuxedo cat was observed to have an odd feature on its fur.
This feature, which involves the fur on the cat's back starting off with a base solid color that turns white towards the tip, was found to be caused by an odd genetic mutation.
New Type of Cat
In technical terms, cats only have two colors, namely, orange and black. Any other color that cats may have is a mix of the two colors, a faded version of one of the colors, or a combination of these two possibilities.
Hence, the sight of the salt-and-pepper kitties made the researchers think that they exhibited a novel expression of the dilution gene.
This new cat was revealed in the "A new Finnish flavor of feline coat coloration, "salmiak," is associated with a 95-kb deletion downstream of the KIT gene" study.
The cat's uncommon coloring was given the name salmiak, which comes after a popular Finnish salty licorice, to invoke the kitty's salt and pepper fur.
It was first observed in Central Finland in 2007. People there were able to notice cats that had these unique coats. On top of the odd pattern on the cats' back, they also tended to have white or nearly white tails. They also appeared to have green or yellow eyes.
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Genetic Mutation
As part of the study, the scientists gathered the blood of five adopted cats. They performed DNA testing on four of them, which revealed no genetic mutations linked to the cats' white fur.
The researchers then conducted whole genome sequencing for two cats. This revealed the deletion of what's known as the KIT gene, which may encode whether the color white will surface in the coat of a cat.
Scientists have previously linked KIT gene variations with piebald patterns across various animals, such as mice and horses.
The researchers concluded that overall, genotype segregation analysis and comparative data from other species supported the deletion of the KIT region as a potential cause for the cats' salmiak coat color.
After conducting tests on 181 cats to ensure that the researchers knew what they were observing, they confirmed that the lack of sequence was the reason behind the unique color of the cats' coat.
Doing so also enabled the researchers to find the variant they were searching for. Among the 181 cats, three of them were found to have the coat. All of the three also apparently inherited the trait from their two parents.
The researchers also found that other cats had the variant but not the coat, as they had inherited the mutation from a single parent.
This revealed the recessive nature of the variant, as the cat only expressed the color if the genetic mutation was inherited from their two parents. This explains why the color pattern is not prevalent.
Heid Anderson, a feline geneticist who led the study, said that the findings enrich understanding of the genetics of feline coat colors and may offer value for breeding efforts. This could possibly contribute to the trait's preservation among cats.
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