Genetic control of ornithine transcarbamylase induction in chick kidney.

After ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) induction by egg-yolk feeding, OTC activity increases rapidly in chicks bearing an Ocb gene. This response to an egg yolk diet does not appear in chicks having no Ocb gene (showing low OTC activity). The chicks showing intermediate OTC activity also respond to the diet, but moderately. Crossing experiments revealed that OTC induction by egg yolk-diet feeding is inherited as a simple autosomal dominant trait. Since a chick develops during embryonic life by utilizing egg yolk from the yolk sac, the variation of OTC activity among chicken breeds and within a breed in 2-day-old chicks seems to depend on a genetically controlled difference of inducibility by egg yolk. The Ocb is an autosomal gene which controls the induction of OTC activity, but it is difficult to explain the consistent difference in OTC activity between sexes by involving this gene or this locus alone.