Comparison between morphs’ melanin pathway coding genes
Among the 15 coding sequences compared between colour morphs, only 5
showed genetic variation. AGRP (agouti-related neuropeptide),POMC (proopiomelanocortin), TYRP1 (Tyrosinase-related
protein1) all showed synonymous mutations. and the two copies of the
melanocortin concentrating hormone receptor (MCHR1 and
MHCR1-like ). Among these, 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). A reconstruction of the MCHRphylogeny suggests that pseudogenization is trans-specific and
associated with a putative gene duplication, putative copies cluster in
distinct branches, independently of the species where they originate
from (Fig. 1).