Comparison between morphs’ melanin pathway coding genes
From the 15 coding sequences compared between colour morphs, only 5
showed genetic variation: AGRP (agouti-related neuropeptide),POMC (proopiomelanocortin), TYRP1 (Tyrosinase-related
protein1) - all synonymous mutations - and among copies of the
(MCHR ) melanocortin concentrating hormone receptor where we found
both a non-synonymous substitution in the copy that appeared to be
functional (no stop codons were identified within the coding sequence)
and also a non-synonymous substitution on the other copy – possibly a
pseudo-gene as identified in the chicken (Cui et al., 2017).
Reconstructing the MCHR phylogeny suggests pseudogenization to be
trans-specific and associated with a putative gene duplication (Fig. 1).