If they were completely seperate locus your would expect a broken pattern superimposed over a dutch pattern and NOT a 95% white rabbit.
I suspect vienna is also allelic to broken as you often get "false Hotots" in crossing vienna carriers to brokens but not always :shrug:
This doesn't necessarily mean that they are allelic. The White pattern genes overlap, to some extent, on function and often tend to have more than a simple additive effect when together. MITF, KIT, EDNRB, and PAX3 are the genes that have been studied to have such an effect. In horses we most commonly see this effect with Tobiano and Splashed White 1. Tobiano is KIT and Splashed White is MITF.
However, it doesn't mean that they aren't allelic either.
My personal theory on Vienna, is that it is a MITF gene mutation because of the blue eyes that often occur in VM animals. KIT genes normally do not cause blue eyes unless the animal is mostly white and even then it seems to be the exception rather than the rule. White Cats and White Alpacas are examples of blue eyed KIT gene mutants. This has to do with how the KIT gene functions it does not "like" to affect the melanocytes development in the eyes and ears. This is the reason that even solid white KIT gene mutants most often have dark eyes. MITF on the other hand, loves to cause blue eyes and mutations in this gene are known to act in a semidominant manner. Not that it can't be a KIT gene, to me, it just doesn't seem as likely.
I am not at all familiar with the Python Colors.
I would love to see more studies done on this.
__________ Sat Feb 14, 2015 9:45 am __________
This seems to indicate that English and Dutch may be on separate genes on the same chromosome.
A second linkage system was shown by Castle (1926) to contain the
genes for English and Dutch patterns of white spotting as well as the gene
for long (angora) hair. English and Dutch were shown to be very closely
linked with each other with less than one per cent of directly observed
crossing-over between them, but since Dutch showed a greater frequency of
crossing-over with angora than English did, the conclusion was reached
that Dutch was more remote from angora, and the order of the genes and
their map distances apart were estimated thus:
du 1.19 En 13.07 1
The chromosome which bears these three genes may be called Chromosome
II of the rabbit.
I'm going to have to find a gene map for rabbits and see if there is another gene known to cause white patterns on rabbit chromosome 2...
I find it interesting that there is no mention of KIT and MCR1 being linked in rabbits. I'm assuming in rabbits they are on different chromosomes? In horses they are on the same chromosome so KIT gene mutations and Extension show linkage. <br /><br /> __________ Sat Feb 14, 2015 9:51 am __________ <br /><br />
The first discovered case of linkage in the rabbit was found by Castle
(1924) to exist between albinism and brown coat pigmentation.
So, chocolate and REW show linkage?
Here's the link to the paper I'm quoting from btw.
http://www.pnas.org/content/27/11/519.full.pdf It's quite old but Castle is usually pretty reliable.
