Tawny: a novel light coat color mutation found in a wild population of Mus musculus molossinus, a new allele at the melanocortin 1 receptor (Mc1r) locus.

We found a new coat color mutant in a population of Japanese wild mice (Mus musculus molossinus) and called the trait tawny. The tawny mutant is characterized by a light yellowish brown coat color. The tawny hair has a so-called agouti pattern, but the yellow band is greatly lengthened. There are no differences between the tawny and wildtype hairs in size and the number of melanosomes. Genetic analyses revealed that the tawny trait is an autosomal recessive and its gene is located in the distal region on Chromosome 8 between the microsatellite markers D8Mit87 and D8Mit122. An allelism test indicated the tawny mutant gene to be a new allele at the Mc1r locus and dominant to the recessive yellow (Mc1re). The proposed gene symbol for the tawny is Mc1rtaw.