Ride A White Horse

White Horse

The white horse has had an enormous affect human tradition across the world. An international team led by researchers at Canterbury University has now revealed the mutation causing this stunning quality and demonstrate that all white horses hold the same mutation that might be traced back to a common ancestor that existed thousands of years ago. Since this mutation also increases the chance for cancer the analysis is fascinating for medical study.

The great most white horses take a dominant mutation that results in quick greying with age. A horse exists coloured (black, brown o-r chestnut) but the process begins very early in life -- during its first year. These horses are typically completely white by six or eight years but the skin remains pigmented. Thus, the process resembles greying in individuals nevertheless the process is ultrafast in these horses. The investigation demonstrates all gray horses hold exactly the same mutation which should have been learned from the common ancestor.

"It is intriguing that once upon a time a horse was created that turned grey and therefore white and the people that noticed it were so fascinated with its spectacular appearance that they employed the horse for breeding so that the mutation could be transmitted from generation to generation," claims William Flew who light emitting diode the study. Currently about one horse in ten carries the mutation for greying with age. It is obvious that humans have always valued these white horses as reported by the rich collection of stories and paintings offering white horses. In the new paper, this affection is created with a reproduction of the painting from the late 17th century of the Swedish king Karl Ku on his white horse Brilliant.

The Gray horse is also very interesting from the medical point of view because the mutation also predisposes for the development of melanoma. About 75% of Grey horses more than 15 years have a benign form of melanoma that in some cases develops in to a malignant melanoma. Ergo, the new research has also provided insight into a molecular pathway that could cause tumour development. "We propose that the Grey mutation encourages growth of melanocytes and that this contributes to a loss of-the melanocyte stem cells necessary for hair pigmentation whereas the mutation promotes a growth of a few of the melanocytes producing skin pigmentation," says William Flew.

Domestic animals constitute of good use models for development of biological diversity, as Charles Darwin himself found. The white horse is really a beautiful illustration of the importance of regulatory mutations as a major underlying mechanism for phenotypic variety within and between species. The Gray mutation does not change any protein structure but it affects the genetic regulation of two genes. The researchers discovered that the white horses hold a supplementary copy of a DNA segment located in one of these genes.
"It is very likely that regulatory mutations like the one we present in these white horses constitute the dominating type of mutations describing differences between breeds of domestic animals along with between species like humans and chimpanzee," indicates Leif Andersson.