| Functional |
"The major components of hair are alpha-keratins and keratin-associated proteins (KAPs), each of which is encoded by separate gene families [4,5]. (...)All hair-keratins are expressed in the hair shaft, and a subgroup of them is also expressed in claws and nails [4]. The critical role of hair-keratins in hair biology is revealed by the fact that a variety of epidermal diseases are caused by mutations
in single hair-keratin genes [5]." |
10.1186/1471-2164-15-869 |
| Mutation Description |
"In both minke and dolphin, K38 was completely lost whereas K31 and K37 are still present as pseudogenes. In both minke and dolphin, K38 was completely lost whereas K31 and K37 are still present as pseudogenes.(...) Whereas the dolphin still has K34, K32 and K35 genes, minke whale does not. Moreover, the minke whale completely lost the K33a and K33b genes, and the K39 and K40 are pseudogenes, but this genomic portion of cluster is missing in the dolphin genome, so we cannot know whether it is a minke specific loss or if its shared by both cetacean species" |
10.1186/1471-2164-15-869 |
| Methodology & Validation |
"In order to characterize the gene repertoire present in the keratin gene clusters in laurasiatherian mammals, we manually annotated keratin genes in the genomes of representative species of all major lineages for which genomic information was available." |
10.1186/1471-2164-15-869 |
| Phenotypic |
"Interestingly, some of the gene losses we observed are shared by both species examined in this study, suggesting that they are the most likely candidates to explain the hairless phenotype in this group of mammals." |
10.1186/1471-2164-15-869 |