Re: A (lengthy) article on BP Gentics
Quote:
Originally Posted by recycling goddess
a note here for clarity. i just edited mendel's post #11
Thanks for doing that for me.
Re: A (lengthy) article on BP Gentics
no problem. tried to pm you letting you know it was done... but your pm box is full! :P
Re: A (lengthy) article on BP Gentics
Quote:
Originally Posted by recycling goddess
no problem. tried to pm you letting you know it was done... but your pm box is full! :P
woops time to clear some of those out....:)
Re: A (lengthy) article on BP Gentics
Quote:
Originally Posted by tmlowe5704
this could be an excellent resource if you "dumb" it down a bit for someone starting out interest in BP genetics. I know there will never be a best source for genetics info, but I feel this one has the possibility to be one of the best.
That's an area I'm going to have a great deal of difficulty with, which is why I *hope* that newcomers will comment as well, on areas they consider overly technical. Once the article itself is as accurate as possible I'm going to be adding in "hint boxes" here and there to give analogies for the more complicated topics (such as the one used to describe alleles).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls
"Recessive, codominant and dominant morphs are often referred to as base mutations. This is understood to mean morphs that exist in the wild. Complex types, like the double recessive mutation, is called a designer mutation, in other words, it's highly unlikely that this mutation will occur in the wild."
This needs some work.
I agree... for starters it shouldn't be under the complex types heading so I'll need to play with that anyway.
Re: A (lengthy) article on BP Gentics
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls
no need to mention things like imprinting or hemizygous loci in a beginner article. They are too technical.
For the author and the reader :D. I'm really already writing outside of my capabilities, evident by the fact that I made quite a few errors.
This is a beginner article. If someone with a greater breadth of knowledge in genetics chooses to write a followup article on more complex topics, so be it. It's a wiki, so that's what it's designed for, but it certainly won't be written by me ;).
Re: A (lengthy) article on BP Gentics
Coming along very nicely!
I’m still having some trouble with the Gene Variations section. Perhaps the wording of the following could be changed a bit:
“However, it's highly unlikely that there is a specific gene which determines whether an animal is Albino or not.”
I believe one of your points is that we shouldn’t refer to the locus where the albino allele has been seen as the “albino gene” because there are also normal for albino and perhaps even other variations possible at that locus. I can see where doing so could lead people to think that albinos have an extra gene that non albinos don’t have, rather than just a different version of that gene. But to me whether you call it the albino gene or the pigment gene is a subtle difference that perhaps needs more explanation for readers to easily pick up the distinction.
How does this sound?
“It is highly unlikely that albino ball pythons are the result of a new albino gene locus (stove element in our analogy) that is not present in normal for albino ball pythons. The gene locus is always there, it’s just that albino ball pythons have a new mutant allele in place of the normal for albino allele, i.e. a new kind of pot is sitting on that element.”
Also, I’m not sure “pigment gene” is a good choice as there are many other color affecting loci that could also be considered pigment genes. You could refer to the gene location as the melanin gene but even that is tricky as there are several incompatible types of albinos in ball pythons so apparently multiple loci effecting melanin. I’m not sure what to call it and that’s probably why we fall back on “albino gene” to refer to the locus but I see where that can be confusing too.
Also, you should know that there doesn’t seem to yet be a publicly demonstrated example of a dominant ball python mutation type. Spider and pinstripe are both candidates but neither has yet seen a proven homozygous animal unveiled. It’s possible that spider is homozygous lethal which I think would technically be co-dominant. I would imagine that we eventually will have a proven dominant morph (spider might yet be the first) and agree that the subject should be covered but you might want to qualify your spider example.
Re: A (lengthy) article on BP Gentics
Well, I made some major adjustments to the TOC, and kind of implemented Randy's suggestion. I didn't do it exactly as you said to, but I agree that the pigment gene example was weak at best.
I also implemented some changes to the "types of morphs" and removed the term "morph" altogether before discussing what the "base" and "designer" mean. I felt it was neccesary to understand what a phenotype was before introducing the term morph.
Hopefully some time in the next day or so (maybe tonight if I'm not too lazy ;)) I'm going to do a codominant/dominant example in the Punnett Squares section.
I also added in an editor's note pointing out that a homozygous Spider has yet to be produced. Hopefully that will change soon :).
Re: A (lengthy) article on BP Gentics
Quote:
Originally Posted by RandyRemington
It’s possible that spider is homozygous lethal which I think would technically be co-dominant.
I really know how that would work, but I'm going to try to talk to our genetics professor later today and find out.
Re: A (lengthy) article on BP Gentics
Actually a homozygous spider may have been produced; it's just that I’ve not seen anyone publicly claiming to have one yet 7 years into captive bred spiders. Hard to tell if that's because it really hasn't been produced (perhaps because not viable), hasn't had time to be proven homozygous through breeding yet, for some marketing reason (would it hurt or help spider prices?), or because homozygous spiders are in some way not publicly presentable.
Re: A (lengthy) article on BP Gentics
Quote:
Originally Posted by RandyRemington
Actually a homozygous spider may have been produced; it's just that I’ve not seen anyone publicly claiming to have one yet 7 years into captive bred spiders. Hard to tell if that's because it really hasn't been produced (perhaps because not viable), hasn't had time to be proven homozygous through breeding yet, for some marketing reason (would it hurt or help spider prices?), or because homozygous spiders are in some way not publicly presentable.
It probably has more to do with the fact that since homozygous spiders don't look any differently than heterozygous spiders, most people out there don't want to look like a boob when the "homozygous" spider they claimed to have sires a clutch of normals.
