Genetics

C-locus

7. Albino, c

The lowest recessive in this series is the well known albino mutation, giving a pure white animal with pink eyes. It does not matter which other genes the mouse has, with cc it is always a pink eyed white mouse. When mated together, two albino mice always produce only pink-eyed white albino mice.

One should always remember, that albino mice always carry a full set of other genes - you can't use albinos with other colours "just like that" in order to get bigger mice with better type. When mating an albino mouse to mouse of any other colour, you will get surprises (sometimes pleasant, sometimes not so pleasant) if you are not familiar with the genetic background of the albino mouse.

Note, that an albino mouse with the dominant yellow gene will still suffer from obesity and other problems common for mice with this gene!

As stated elsewhere on these pages, also other combinations of genes can give a pink-eyed white mouse. If you get also other colours when mating two pink eyed whites together, one or both of your mice are not albinos.

at/at bc/* c/c p/p pic: Arttu Väisälä

Quiz Time!

Quiz four: How to find out what genes an albino mouse carries?

Answer: You can find this out by test-mating your albino. According to Tony Cooke, the best variety to do a test-mating with is one with aa bb dd pp - that is the pink-eyed lilac. This isn't normally very easy to come by if show champagne isn't popular and actually does take a few generations to breed... Anyway, pink-eyed lilac is the best variety to test mate an albino.

If there are blacks in the litter, the c/c mouse has a, if there are agoutis, it has A/*, if there are chocolates - a/a b^c/*, if cinnamons - A/* b^c/*, etc. If there are reds, the PEW isn't an albino at all, but a c-locus dilute red.

This test doesn't reveal whether the mouse tested is one of the c-locus heterozygote mock albinos, though. Finding that out would require a known c-locus recessive heterozygote. Siamese seal point would fit fine.