# The splashed gene - is this a fancier's term?



## MojoMouse (Apr 20, 2012)

We don't have splashed mice in Australia, to my knowledge, and I know little about it. As there are many references to this coat pattern I've tried to find out more. It appears that it's only used on mouse fancier sites, but doesn't exist in any of the scientific literature.

There are genes for various spotting, piebald, mottling patterns which occur on different loci, but nothing for splashed. The gene Sp refers to_ Splotching_, and is lethal when homozygous, so this probably isn't it.

Is what's referred to as the splashed gene a fancier term? Does it related to a spotting or piebald gene that commonly occurs with (or is linked to) modifyers to produce the distinctive pattern?

Whatever it is, I love the pattern and wish we had it here!


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## Stina (Sep 24, 2010)

Splashed is not a gene that has been studied in labs that I'm aware of. Most of us use the code "Spl" to denote splashed. It is a dominant gene that is only visible on c-diluted mice (except c/c) and on p/p mice when they are young (but on p/p mice the markings fade as they mature). On c-diluted mice it undilutes them in patches...it is unrelated to any white spotting gene, though when in combination with piebald the splashing tends to clump together into large spots to create tricolors.


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## MojoMouse (Apr 20, 2012)

Thanks, that's a good explanation! I was curious about how it is expressed and behaves, and you've answered that. It's still odd that it hasn't been identified on the mouse genome though. Do you know where the term originated from, and when it came into common usage in the fancy?


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## Stina (Sep 24, 2010)

I don't think splashed has occured in any lab lines...and there's been no obvious reason for anyone to study it, so it just hasn't been done...**shrug** also don't know who the first to call it splashed was...but its now the name used everywhere its seen.


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## MojoMouse (Apr 20, 2012)

Ok. I was just curious because I couldn't find any mention of it on my favourite reference site. I'm finding it a bit complicated to understand, though your summary helped. I'd love to find out more.


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## Malene (Jun 8, 2010)

AFRMA has some articles on splashed and it says they came from a lab:
http://www.afrma.org/tgtris.htm
http://www.afrma.org/c-c_splashed.htm

I've spent hours looking for it on JAX and Google, but I've never found anything scientific :|


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## Stina (Sep 24, 2010)

They have some odd opinions on there...but anyway... They may have come from a lab that just didn't have any interest in the color/marking genetics.


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## MojoMouse (Apr 20, 2012)

They're interesting articles, Malene. Thanks.

Looks like the topic could be a bit prickly, and as I'm new here on the forum and don't want to be annoying, I'll leave it there. I'm only here to learn.


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## Loganberry (Oct 24, 2008)

Not prickly at all MojoMouse! Keep asking questions - ignore any prickly people ;-)


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

I assumed they came from a lab but didn't know.I wonder if Roland knows.He's not on here any more but you could check out his chilloutra(think that was the name)website.


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

Chilloutarea, is Roland's mousery. If you search on google for 'Chilloutarea mousery' You'll find it.


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## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

I have read the cited articles and I am bemused.

It's somewhat vindicating to see that I'm not the only person to hold the opinion that splashed and tricolor are transgenic in origin. My tri/splashed meeces heritage go directly back to Chiodo with one intermediary breeder. And he even uses the term 'quadcolor' in the same manner as I have. Fascinating...once i thought I might be wrong, but now I find out I was mistaken! :lol:


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

That they came from a lab does not necessarily mean transgenic, though. Because lab stock has a regular turn-over and goes through many animals, there's nothing strange about new mutations that were generated naturally through pure randomness to pop up in lab stock.


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## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

Trying not to be self-righteous, I must point out that it was hammered at solidly that Ms Wilson 'discovered' the splashed/tri in her meeces.

I am still going to do a little victory dance for sake of my having stuck to my guns on this matter.


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

Do all the dances you like, an have all the guns you like, but what I see is one guy saying another person got them from yet another unnamed person who says the gene got spliced in from somewhere, but they don't know where or why, and without any records, and instead with a lot of misinformation that fanciers have since corrected. I don't feel like that's conclusive in the slightest. I also don't appreciate the way those articles throw around the word transgenic as though it's the equivalent of mutant, or as though it's the name of the variety.


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## Stina (Sep 24, 2010)

Transgenic means that DNA from another species has been spliced in.....there is absolutely NO evidence that this is the case in splashed mice. None whatsoever. Period.


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

Well, there's hearsay evidence, but if some lab tech smuggled out fertile transgenic animals, they'd have the Fed on them.


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## Stina (Sep 24, 2010)

how is there even heresay evidence? Someone saying they got them from someone else who got them from someone else who said they were transgenic isn't hearsay evidence...its just heresay...its not evidence.


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## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

As I've said before, I don't require that everyone agree with me.

Laigaie: OK, here you go. I guess I've taken enough flak on this subject that I felt I needed to 'pull over onto the shoulder' into a neutral area. I'm not interested in arguing about it, though. It ought to be crystal clear that I am fairly well set in my views.

It is interesting that Mike Chiodo says the opposite in these articles of statements that were previously attributed to him by members (or former members) of this forum, and that he says Wanda got her original splashed/tricolor mousies from someone who worked in a lab. This as close to the source as our info is going to get, unless someone can pay for a genetic analysis. Since Wanda is no longer with us, we will never know exactly where it started.

Yeah, I should have expected the kind of reaction I've gotten. It's OK; I don't require that everyone agree with me. Maybe it would help to remember that I've been working with tris for about six years, a lot longer than most other breeders.

Why would the AFRMA put up an article if they didn't feel it was correct information? And as far as those articles being hearsay, I'd guess that there's quite a bit of info bandied about the mouse fancy that is accepted as fact without nearly as visible support.

I have stood by my view, and will continue to do so. I don't see how folks have become so invested in this area of discussion that you feel the need to try to blow it off.

Not only does the article say that tris and splashed mousies are transgenic, but the rest of it corresponds with the reading I've done on the subject. This reference from the folks who first brought tricolors to the fancy overrides any earlier info that I've seen in the assorted forums and info pages anywhere online. Why would Mr. Chiodo, someone who has been referred to as an authority in this matter, attach his name to such an article if he hadn't good reason to do so?

The general outlines of how the splashed genes work are adequate for most purposes, but it doesn't explain a lot of different things that occur. It'd only by looking closely that all these things form the pattern that leads one to look for further explanation.
The ruby eyes, the odd eyes, the sexual ambiguities that spring up in some lines, the seizure disorder in other lines, the skewing of established patterns of white markings and on and on. All these characteristics point to Cattenach's translocation.

As far as the Feds coming down on someone for having smuggled a viable tricolor from a lab, this is not germ warfare or weaponry we're talking about here. And it wouldn't have been the first time lab specimens have used to create new types of fancy meeces. Where did many of the other specialty meeces come from? Did the Gene Fairy sprinkle magic DNA on someone's mousies at home? Or was it random cosmic rays?

No...they came from lab experiments. But none of this will hamper our enjoyment in breeding these mousies.


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

I'm not sure why you're taking all this so personally. Absolutely nobody has attacked you personally, or said you shouldn't believe what you do. We've said we disagree. We're all chill here.

At the time that the information was gathered, it was probably the best available. I didn't say the articles were hearsay themselves. I said they included hearsay as factual evidence, which is not enough for me personally. The hearsay is when one person says another person said another person said something, and takes that something as fact. That there are other things accepted as fact within the mousing community without evidence is unfortunate, and those things also could do with research.

Nobody's blowing off your opinions, and they're invested for the same exact reasons that you are. We are interested and have a vested interest in mouse genetics. You breed large quantities of excellent tricolored and splashed mice. That doesn't mean your opinion is the only one that counts, and it is an excellent reason to take your opinion as having weight. I really feel like everyone has always taken your opinion as having weight, every time it's been discussed, even when they disagreed with you. The whole thing has been quite civil, I thought.

Again, I'm sure the authors of the articles provided the best information they could, and the most information they had. Unfortunately, without any information about the actual work done with the mice in the lab, or any information at all, really, about the assertion that the gene is transgenic. I'm sure he honestly believes that. That's all well and good, and I'm sure that's enough for many people. Personally, I hold scientist's opinions on the matters of genetics as generally speaking to be of greater importance than those of breeders. We can guess at genetics. We can make very very educated guesses. But we cannot do the same kinds of research that accredited institutions can do. That's okay. Normally, we don't need to. Normally, all the genes available to us are also present in a lab line somewhere, and have therefore been studied. For some reason, even though this gene is asserted to have come from a lab, the gene isn't well documented. It's quite odd, really.

I understand what you're saying about there being a lot of other things that seem to go along with this gene, side-effects if you will. Other genes have those, like Avy and obesity. It does not, however, make sense to me that the side-effects of Spl are related in any way to Cattanach's translocation. Let me quote Roland. Though we may disagree on other things, I appreciate his scientific accuracy.

"Cattanach's translocation is not the cause of Splashed and Tricolour

Cattanach's translocation involves the transposition of material* from an autosome into a X chromosome, so that this X* becomes the longest chromosome in the complement.
X-inactivation (also called lyonization) is a process by which one of the two copies of the X chromosomes present in females is inactivated. The inactive X chromosome is silenced by packaging into transcriptionally inactive heterochromatine. X-inactivation occurs so that the female, with two X chromosomes, does not have twice as many X chromosome geneproducts as a male, which only possess a single copy of the X chromosome. The choice of which X chromosome will be inactivated is random in mice and other mammals (including humans), but once an X chromosome is inactivated it will remain inactive throughout the lifetime of the cell and its descendants in the organism.
The coloration of tortoiseshell cats is a visible manifestation of X-inactivation. The black and orange alleles of a fur coloration gene reside on the X chromosome. For any given patch of fur, the inactivation of an X chromosome that carries one gene results in the fur color of the other, active gene.

Cattanach's insertions which include the normal C-allele translocated to the X-chromsosome is subject of lyonisation too, so that XXC / cc mice have albino and pigmented patches. This is well known since many years, see this publication for example: http://dev.biologists.org/content/96/1/295.full.pdf .
Therefore some fanciers thought Cattanach's translocation is the molecular genetic background of Splashed and Tricolour mice. Unfortunately this can not be true, because Splashed (Spl) has an autosomal genetics and no gonosomal genetics. A splashed buck of course has one X chromosome only. If Spl would be located on the Cattanach's translocation, the X-chromosome, he could give birth to splashed daughters only, but never to splashed sons, if crossed to a non-splashed female: XC/Y ce/ce crossed with X/X ce/ce would give non-splashed sons only (XY ce/ce) and 100% splashed daughters (XCX ce/ce).

This does not happen. Unfortunately the molecular basis of Spl still remains unknown."

All of that is to say: there are male Spl and tri mice who are really no different from female Spl and tri mice. Therefore, Cattanach's translocation doesn't apply to this gene.

As far as my comment about the Feds, you seem to be misunderstanding again. Transgenic mice are legally classed as Genetically Modified Organisms. GMO animals (and plants, really) are a very very big deal to a lot of people, and that is reflected somewhat in the laws regarding them in this country. You see, GMOs that haven't been tested and approved for use outside of laboratories are considered extremely controlled. I personally know a woman who, during a nervous breakdown, smuggled GMO plants from the lab where she worked. The entire lab was nearly shut down when their funding agency determined that some plants were missing. She wasn't trying to sell them. She wasn't trying to grow them in fields. She just moved her plants from one lab to another, so that she wouldn't have to work with someone she disliked. And she nearly destroyed the University's accreditation to be working with GMOs. If a lab tech smuggled fertile GMO animals out of a lab, that lab tech would have lost his or her job. Her boss would probably have lost his or her job. The entire lab would be in jeopardy of losing all its funding and its ability to work with GMOs.

Other varieties of mice that have originated in lab stock are well documented. Some were radiation-induced, like satin. Others popped up the same way that new genes pop up in fanciers' stock. Mutation is this thing that a very very few folks don't believe in, because their religious beliefs prevent them from believing in natural evolution. If that's our issue, I'm highly surprised. However, let me explain how mutations happen. See, even if there is no increased rate of mutation, as caused by radiation or other genetic destruction, there is a very small chance, every time DNA replicates, that it will replicate wrong. That's okay. It's the way things are supposed to work. It's why lots of things are different from how they were 100 million years ago. See, when the DNA's doing its thing during the division of a cell, it can fail to replicate identically and instead replicate slightly differently. If this is on an unused section of the genetic coding, nobody will ever know. If it's on a functional section, however, things get interesting. It could cause the mouse to have no toes. Or too many toes. Or to be a different color. All sorts of things! This is how most varieties of mice came into being. Some came into being a longer time ago than others, and some replicate the effects of others. Now, when you're the person in charge of the husbandry of a line of lab mice, you're creating a lot of mice. Probably, you're creating a lot of nearly identical mice. So, when suddenly one of your mice isn't as identical as it was supposed to be, you'll notice. It's your job to notice. And, when you're creating so many mice, you're not increasing the chance that any individual mouse will be a mutant, but you're increasing the chance that a mutant will show up in the total population. That's the way statistics work. Unless you figure religion has some tampering going on with this bit, there is no Gene Fairy. And while there are cosmic rays aka radiation, they're likely not the cause of the issue. Pure, undiluted randomness, and the fact that every living thing, including every strand of DNA, isn't quite capable of being perfect, that's the cause of the issue.

True, none of this will hamper anyone's enjoyment, or at least it shouldn't. And if anyone needs to believe any particular fact about their mice that does not actually have any effect on the actual mice, it's no problem of mine. I personally do not believe it is remotely likely that the mice are transgenic in origin. I have too different of an understanding of the way lab lines are handled to accept that theory. But I do feel that it's worth discussing. I do find it terribly interesting. And it was important to me that I explain the things I'd said, particularly the ones that seemed to have been misunderstood and found upsetting. I do hope this explanation makes more sense, and is therefore no longer upsetting.


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## Stina (Sep 24, 2010)

Very well said! Agreed 

There are many genes in other species, and in mice, that have unpredictable outcomes...any brindling genes... a gene called "grizzle" in some breeds of dog that is only apparent if the dog is also a^t/a^t...any merle type genes....none of these are transgenic, but highly variable in phenotypic outcome. Odd eyes are not in any way evidence of transgenes...different colored eyes can occur in ANY species and certain markings can have a tendency to affect eye color...merle in dogs for example...merle dogs often have 2 different colored eyes. A lot of spotting genes as well...if there is color over one eye and white over the other, often times they will be different colors. The same occurs in splashed marks...its just a matter of a splash occuring "in" one eye and not the other.

Also, traits that can occur is SOME lines, but not others, with the same pattern/color genes proves that those traits are NOT directly related to the pattern/color gene.


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## MojoMouse (Apr 20, 2012)

Stina, your last statement is incorrect. It doesn't prove anything. In many cases, whether or not a trait associated with a gene is expressed can be associated with many factors, as has become apparent in epigentic research.


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## Stina (Sep 24, 2010)

oh I suppose you're right (its been awhile since I got out of school...lol)... My point was really that strange traits in some lines aren't evidence that something is a transgene....especially if they came from a lab. I personally have never seen or experienced anything strange with splashed mice...and honestly have never heard of anything strange before the comment in this thread besides an occasional pseudohermaphrodite, and I'm not not sure its any more prevalent in splashed mice than other marking/color.


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

moustress said:


> As I've said before, I don't require that everyone agree with me.
> 
> The general outlines of how the splashed genes work are adequate for most purposes, but it doesn't explain a lot of different things that occur. It'd only by looking closely that all these things form the pattern that leads one to look for further explanation.
> The ruby eyes, the odd eyes, the sexual ambiguities that spring up in some lines, the seizure disorder in other lines, the skewing of established patterns of white markings and on and on. All these characteristics point to Cattenach's translocation.


I didn't know they had any perculiar quirks I put the eyes down to the colouring.I'd be really interested in the quirks and oddities people have experienced if anyone cares to expand in not to scientific a way.What happened to Wanda?


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## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

I have had an odd thought as to Mike Chiodo's articles on the AFRMA site, and that is that maybe his assertions are based on my having spread my views around liberally enough that he is taking that as part of the basis of what he presents in those articles...it wouldn't be the first time something put up on the internet was passed along widely enough that it became accepted as fact.

Another thought is that while it's most likely not Cattanach's translocation at work, it could be some other type of genetic manipulation. As I've said before, it pretty much doesn't matter...functionally at least...as we agree on how it works, in general, at least.

I was tempted to accuse you of trying to confuse me with facts, Laigaie. 

I'm still curious to know more of where Mike Chiodo got his info; I'm going to try to find contact info on him.


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

I think contacting Chiodo is the first step to finding the truth. Good idea!


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## Shadowrunner (Sep 26, 2011)

I've had splashes around for a while. The only odd things I see are bi-eyes (heterochromia)
splashes stopping in distinct lines along the spine, hermaphrodites and odd numbers of nipples.( 6 on one side 8 on the other)

The only thing I can really think of is some kind of play with the genes that control symmetrical growth.

I have heterochromia myself and I know that's a genetic trait if not caused by injury.

Maybe spl interacts with those genes more directly than other varieties.
I'm just trying to express what I see with limited vocabulary here. D:
It's rather difficult.


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## Stina (Sep 24, 2010)

You can get odd numbered nipples in anything...and the bilateral assymetry is normal for many markings, since fetal development is from the spine out.  Also, heterochromia is not always simple genetics...in the case of marked animals, like splashed mice/merle dogs/pied horses/etc, it is related to the markings themselves. If a marking occurs "in" one eye, but not the other, the eyes will be different colors  A marking around the eye does not always equate to a marking "in" the eye though...so sometimes even with different markings over the eyes you will still get 2 of the same color eye.


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## Stina (Sep 24, 2010)

I'm not sure if the pseudohermaphrodites would be related to the splashed gene directly or not...I'm fairly sure I've heard of other mice from the same lines, that were c-diluted, but not splashed, that were pseudohermaphrodites, which would suggest that it is related to the line, and not directly to the gene.


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