Some aspects of gene dosage in N- type sheep

Abstract

The dominant and recessive mimic genes N and nr produce increased birthcoat hairiness in New Zealand Romney lambs. This hairiness has been studied in lambs of different genotypes by three different methods. It has been found: (i) that in individual lambs there is a gradient in hairiness from the shoulder patch to the britch; (ii) increases in hairiness with increasing dosage of the N and nr genes conform to this gradient; (iii) with any single increase in N-gene dosage there is a differential rate of increase in hairiness on different positions. These results are explained on the hypothesis that the primary gene action is linear, but the gradient is modified by a threshold and possibly by a ceiling effect in the production of birthcoat medullation.