# ce (extreme dilution) gene



## ian (Oct 3, 2008)

Hi, I was wondering about the ce gene which causes the dilution of colour.

Is the gene recessive? I assumed it worked similarly to the chocolate or blue dilution which would require the b or d gene from each parent to be seen in the offspring? Anyway I have a couple of does which are diluted one of which has just had a litter, its a bit early to be guessing at their colour but three of them are very pale skinned while one is very dark skinned like the blacks and agouti's are when they are pinkies.

Are there any other genes that can cause colour dilution and if these mice are shown what catergory can they be entered into (aov or unstandardised?).


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## Cait (Oct 3, 2008)

C dilutes are odd in that they interact with each other, like for example c (albino) and ch (himalayan) - cc is albino and chch is siamese but one copy of each makes himalayan. c (albino) and ce (extreme dilution) make cream, but cece is stone which is unstandardised. The Finnmouse site has some good info on c-dilutes here: http://www.hiiret.fi/engp/bre_gen_c_t.html

To try and answer your question about showing, lots of colours we already show are dilutes of some kind. For example a silver is a blue with pink eyed dilution, an argente is an agouti with pink eyed dilution and so on. A PEW might be a c/ce (pink eyed cream) genetically. Black eyed creams are definitely dilutes, though different strains may be dilutes of different colours (usually selfs). Whatever the effect used to obtain a mouse though, it has to conform to the rules. If it doesn't appear (phenotype) as per the standardised variety then it can't be shown, regardless of genotype. Clear as mud?


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## ian (Oct 3, 2008)

OK it's quite an interesting locus!

So ce can cause dilution when heterozygous which finnmouse discusses but surely it doesn't have an effect when heterozygous with C (full colour) does it?

It will be much easier to tell whats going on when these babies are furred :?

I worked it out as, in the simplest form:

Dilute Ticked Doe (A B cece D P) x Black Tan Buck (atat B C D P) which would result in *Aat B Cce D P* babies 
(ive ignored the possibility of heterozygous genes for A B D and P which shouldn't be relevant to the diluting factor although P might according to finnmouse).

However if the buck has some wierd thing going on with his C locus aswell the babies could be anything, if he is carrying ce then it would work out as 50% would be dilute which seems fairly accurate.

What do you think?


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