Ok... I NEED HELP!! Wacky Outcome?? (LONG)...

[Sean : CSM]

Hello everyone,

This post is regarding our "T+"? Albino project. I have no idea what is going on with these animals and Don Soderberg as well as a few others seem to think that we are working with a Tyrosine+ Amelanisitc Corn. Rich has expressed his theories on numerous unrelated types of Hypomelanism in Corns... so that could be what we have here...

The story begins with me attaining an "Hypo" and an Amel produced from a WC normal female and a male Okeetee Het for Amel. Upon examining this "Hypo" it didn't seem to BE a Hypo but perhaps some darker, maybe Tyrosine +, form of Amelanism! I couldn't attain anymore of these "Hypos" and unfortunately the "Hypo" one was a female and sibling Amel was a male. Upon breeding them last year I hatched BOTH Amels and more of these "T+"? things... about an even ratio!

Here is a photo of one of last year's "T+"?s with a standard Hypo...

OK... now onto this year's breedings...

This season I bred the original female "T+"? to a standard Hypo Het. for Anery (when bred to his sister last year he produced both standard Hypos and Ghosts.) The reason I did this cross is to prove that the "T+"? line wasn't just the dbl Homozygous result from a standard Hypo x Amel cross.

Here is what I saw on Monday...

What the hell?? Normals... Amels... &... "T+"???s NO HYPOS!

I think we can assume the following...

The "T+"? female is Het. for Amel (which we knew from last season's results)

The standard Hypo male is Het. for both Anery "A" and Amel

The Hypo male was NEVER related to the female "T+"?'s gene pool! 2 totally different origins from different areas of the country.

UGH!!!!! I need IDEAS!!! Please Help?? Rich?? Anybody??

The best I can come up with is that the "T+"? gene is dominant?? I know the ratios don't click right...

3 "T+"?s
5 Amels
10 Normals

But clutch stats can go VERY wrong sometimes!

Here are a few other pics...

Those pics were taken with NO FLASH! That IS the TRUE color of the eye...

Please help me!!!

Thanks for reading this loooong one!

 

[Darin Chappell]

Sean,

Assuming for the moment that this is a case of T+ genetics, I don't think you can say that it is a dominant characteristic. If it were, all of the babies would show the effects, because a dominant gene is phenotypically evident, even in a heterozygous animal, which these all are. Right, or have I missed something?

Wild looking animals, though!

 

[Sean : CSM]

Dominant genetics...

Darin,

In the case of dominant or co-dominant/incomplete-dominant genetics... the "Het" form (which my original female "T+"? may be) would produce 50% of her offspring appearing as she does. No I didn't hatch anywhere NEAR 50% but then again those statistics are not always acurate just as our stats of hatching a Homozygous animal out of 4 eggs from a Het pair is not always the case. If she was the "Homo" or "Super" form then ALL of the babies would resemble her regardless of what the father was.

I am not saying that it IS dominant or co-dominant... just a thought. Next year I will breed her to a Wild Caught Normal male from my area and if I get anything resembling "T+"?s or Hypos I know I am onto something.

I was thinking that maybe the Hypo could be Het for the "T+"? condition but I have discussed it with the breeder that the standard Hypos came from and he has never seen anything like that come from his stuff.

THEN I was thinking that maybe what you see in the egg box above is a dbl Homozygous Hypo Amel but that would mean that the standard Hypo would have to be Het for the Hypomelanism that the "T+"? one exhibits. If that was the case then we would have seen this other type of Hypo emerge from the standard Hypos??

See what I mean... I'm going crazy over here!!

Please keep the thoughts coming on this one!

Thanks...

 

[Taceas]

Ok, fill me in here..

What is all of this Tyrosine Positive stuff?

And if you're positive what is the effect on the phenotype?

 

[Rich Z]

LOL!

I've been going through this Hypo Hell crap for a couple of years now and have been wondering when the rest of the world was going to get infected by it. I have to remember to cut my fingernails every day, otherwise I will gouge holes in my head when I scratch my head in puzzlement.

And no, I don't have a clue what is going on. Are new hypomelanistic-like genes showing up spontaneously? Or has selectively inbreeding for brighter colors finally broken loose something that was inhibiting these pseudo-hypo influences?

I am getting Hypos from lines that I have records back to the late 70s and early 80s with no trace of Hypo in their ancestry. Then on the other hand I am breeding Hypos together that came from the same CLUTCHES and not getting all Hypos.

One year I bred an Ultra Hypo to my standard (I thought!) line of hypo and got all hypos. But some looked a bit brighter than the others. What does that mean? Then the next year I bred the same Ultra Hypo to an Amber that was produced from that very same line of Hypo and got all normals. No rhyme nor reason in this stuff.

I am SERIOUSLY considering dropping the term 'hypomelanism' from the descriptions of any snakes I sell. I cannot guarantee any results from anything any longer. I am absolutely waiting on pins and needles for people to start breeding the Hypo Lavenders I have sold over the last few years. Dollar to a donut says they will NOT get all Hypo Lavenders when those eggs hatch. And what do I tell them, then?

With all of these oddball hypomelanistic influences showing up all of a sudden, we don't have any idea what they are, much less what sort of interaction there will be when they are combined. And for all we know, they have always been there, but there has suddenly been a change in our luck that they are now starting to finally show up.

Heck, I can't even put the raw data into anything resembling a rational logical arrangement to even try to look at it from an objective viewpoint. Whatever logic may be lurking in there is completely eluding me!

So fellas, if I am losing it, I'm taking you all with me!! We'll all have a real grand time in that big padded room together! But first one to say "hypomelanism", dies.

 

[limey]

It seems to me for the first time it helps to be breeding corns in the uk, all our hypos seem to run pretty true. This means that to prevent the spread of madness over here i will need to isolate my self from importing stock lol - damn its not goin to happen ah well at least i am many years away form the madness you guys are suffering

 

[CAV]

Hey Rich.............

Does that mean I can get a bargin basement price on the "old junky, not proven, formerly known as Hypo Lav" Lavenders that you must now get rid of?????

I for one kind of like the thought of having lighter and brighter genes to work with.

 

[Rich Z]

Yeah, brighter varieties of corns are interesting, but when you hatch out clutches, you generally like to have a fair idea of what to expect. Last year I had a clutch of Hypo Lavenders hatch out and there were three distinctly different looking groups of animals in there.

I had a a lot projects in the works that needed to have Hypo homozygous in both of the parents to cut down the long statistical odds. This has become a real setback. Of course, maybe it will be offset a bit if there are some interesting results from the combinations of the multiple hypo related influences.

Time will tell, I guess.

 

[Serpwidgets]

Lots of thoughts here...

Some questions. Not trying to pick, but trying to get a better handle on the origins of the individual(s) involved.

The story begins with me attaining an "Hypo" and an Amel produced from a WC normal female and a male Okeetee Het for Amel.

Was this directly hatched from the above pair? I mean: was the WC Normal het for amel? Was the Okeetee het for Hypo? Was the WC Normal het for hypo?

The way you describe its inheritance pattern to this point, it does sound like a dominant trait. The interesting thing is that if it's dominant, then either: one of its parents looked that way, or the parent it came from was also carrying another influence which blocked its expression, or there was a spontaneous mutation which created the original "Hypo" you attained. (I'd guess the latter.)

Another possibility is that this gene only expresses in the presence of Amelanism, and the effect of its expression is to partially "undo" the effects of amel. IOW, it doesn't "reduce" the amount of melanin at all. ;-)

When you bred the siblings (T+ X Amel) how many eggs hatched, and were there any Normal normals? Or was the clutch entirely amels and "T+?" If there weren't any normals, it may be the case that the "T+" is in fact homozygous for amel, and the above strange scenario could be what's happening. (shrug)

The reason I did this cross is to prove that the "T+"? line wasn't just the dbl Homozygous result from a standard Hypo x Amel cross.

The "T+" example is definitely showing melanin. It's obviously way hypo-ey-er than a hypo, but still it's not truly amelanistic, or at least that's what the pic shows. IMO there's no way this is the double-homozygous F2 result of Amel X standard Hypo, otherwise it wouldn't have any melanin. It kinda looks like Kat's "Ultra-Hypo" Motley to me. Can you post pics of the Original T+ female, too?

The best I can come up with is that the "T+"? gene is dominant?? I know the ratios don't click right...

3 "T+"?s
5 Amels
10 Normals

Actually, these don't seem too outrageous to me. Let's make two assumptions for the moment:
1- "T+" is a simple dominant, and
B- "T+" is masked by Amelanism.

Under those assumptions, with 18 eggs, you'd expect 1/4th (4.5)of them to be Amels. Also, half of the clutch (9) would be "T+" hatchlings. For all you know, you've got 8 of them.

Or look at it this way: if you remove the amels from the equation, this would be like getting a clutch of 18... and as they're pipping, you look in and 13 have pipped so far, and only 3 of them are "T+" and you still have more than 25% of the clutch remaining.

So with somewhere between 3 and 8 of them (presumably) the "odds" of that happening in a clutch of 18 are as below.

Or, if you swap scenarios and say "it only works in the presence of amel" you'd expect about half of the amels to be "T+" looking creatures. 3/8ths is about as close as you can get to that.

At least it does appear to be heritable at this point. (And at least you're not out there advertising "hets or possible hets," hehe.) It will take some work to nail it down, but still cool nonetheless... IMO anything new in corns from now on will require quite a bit of work to isolate, especially now that all of the "easy" traits are already out there.

 

[Serpwidgets]

Re: Ok, fill me in here..

What is all of this Tyrosine Positive stuff?

Not to get all geeky, but:
Tyrosine is an amino acid.

Tyrosinase is a protein created by a specific gene. It is vital in the production of Melanin (the dark pigment) because it allows Tyrosine to form into big chains, which is what the pigment Melanin is... basically big chains of Tyrosine.

When that gene pair malfunctions, the Tyrosine cannot chain together and form the pigment. That animal will not produce melanin, and thus will be amelanistic, or what many people call "albino." These individuals are "T-" or Tyrosinase Negative, meaning they don't have Tyrosinase in them.

A "T+" (Tyrosinase Positive) albino exhibits a deficiency of melanin, but it produces Tyrosinase, so it's not caused by the "standard" broken Tyrosinase gene. As far as I know, any hypomelanistic creature can be accurately described as a "T+ albino."

To sum up, "T+" doesn't really point to any specific cause or mechanism, it's like saying, "it's exhibiting a lack of or reduction in melanin, and we don't know why." Except "T+" sounds a lot cooler.

 

[Taceas]

Re:

Serp,

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I knew Tyrosine was an amino acid, stuff like that is about all I remember from my AP Biology days doing genetics and DNA swapping with bacteria.

I just had no clue what the effect of possessing tyrosine had on the phenotype of the specimen, IE, no clue it was the building block of melanin.

This whole "Hypo or Not-Hypo" situation certainly is interesting to watch from the sidelines, as the breeders try and unravel it. But I sure as hell don't want to be a part of it trying to decipher what is what. =P

Kudos to Rich and Sean for having infinite constructive boredom to try and make sense of it all.