Figure 1.
(A) A normal rabbit coat (A1), a rex rabbit with a castor coat (A2) and an orylag® with a castor coat (A3). (B) Cross section of a fibre bundle of a normal rabbit coat (B1), a rex rabbit (B2) and an orylag® (B3). (C) Skin cross section of a hair follicle group of a normal rabbit coat (C1), a rex rabbit (C2) and an orylag® (C3). Arrows indicate the differences in shape and diameters of primary central hair follicles and their hair.
Figure 2.
Distribution of hair diameters in µm (X-axis) in normal (blue) and rex (red) rabbit coats.
Two diameter sizes ranges are represented on two different graphs to cope with the Y-axis scale (frequencies).
Table 1.
Mean length (± standard deviation) of outer coat, inner coat, fibre diameter and coarse fibre content (defined as the content of fibres having a fibre diameter larger than 30 µm) in rex and normal G2 rabbit coats.
Figure 3.
Mapping of the rex coat trait in the rabbit families.
A whole genome scan performed on 187 rabbits for 47 microsatellites localized the rex phenotype (INRAR) on rabbit chromosome 14 within an interval of 40 cM. Fine mapping refined the localization within a 0.5 cM (⊖ = 0 ; LOD = 78) region flanked by microsatellites INRA051and INRA086.
Figure 4.
LIPH expression in rabbit skin.
LIPH was detected by RT-PCR (ex 7–10) in rabbit skin of 5 common and 5 rex rabbits. The expected product size is 753 pb.
Table 2.
Primers used for RT–PCR.
Figure 5.
The 1362delA mutation in exon 9 of LIPH in rex rabbits.
(A) Electropherograms of the LIPH exon 9 sequence from a normal common type rabbit (WT), a rex and a heterozygous are shown. The red line indicates the location of the mutation. In heterozygous rabbits there is an overlap of both allele sequences (purple box). (B) Deduced alignment of LIPH proteins between rex and normal common type rabbits. (C) C-terminal conservation in mammalians.
Table 3.
Primers used for genomic amplification.