EPIDERMIS IS THE SITE OF ACTION OF TABBY (TA) IN THE MOUSE

Thomas C. Mayer 1 and Margaret C. Green 2

1 Department of Biology, Rider College, Lawrenceville, New Jersey 08648
2 The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine 04609

The site of action of the sex-linked tabby (Ta) locus was analyzed by the technique of dermal-epidermal recombination grafting. Skin components from normal and tabby 14-day embryos were separated, recombined and grown 21 days in testes of histocompatible mice. Grafts of the combinations normal epidermis-normal dermis and normal epidermis-tabby dermis produced predominantly zig-zag hairs. Grafts of the combination tabby epidermis-normal dermis and tabby epidermis-tabby dermis produced hairs with a morphology similar to hairs found in tabby mice. We conclude from these results that the tabby locus acts within the epidermis, and has no effect on the dermis.

Submitted on March 17, 1978