PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Longhua Guo
AU  - Joshua Bloom
AU  - Steve Sykes
AU  - Elaine Huang
AU  - Zain Kashif
AU  - Elise Pham
AU  - Katarina Ho
AU  - Ana Alcaraz
AU  - Xinshu Grace Xiao
AU  - Sandra Duarte-Vogel
AU  - Leonid Kruglyak
TI  - Genetics of white color and iridophoroma in “Lemon Frost” leopard geckos
AID  - 10.1101/2020.12.18.423549
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.12.18.423549
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/01/27/2020.12.18.423549.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/01/27/2020.12.18.423549.full
AB  - The squamates (lizards and snakes) are close relatives of birds and mammals, with more than 10,000 described species that display extensive variation in a number of important biological traits, including coloration, venom production, and regeneration. Due to a lack of genomic tools, few genetic studies in squamates have been carried out. The leopard gecko1, Eublepharis macularius, is a popular companion animal, and displays a variety of coloration patterns. We took advantage of a large breeding colony and used linkage analysis, synteny, and homozygosity mapping to investigate a spontaneous semi-dominant mutation, “Lemon Frost”, that produces white coloration and causes skin tumors (iridophoroma). We localized the mutation to a single locus which contains a strong candidate gene, SPINT12,3, a tumor suppressor implicated in human skin cutaneous melanoma (SKCM) and over-proliferation of epithelial cells in mice and zebrafish4–16. Our work establishes the leopard gecko as a tractable genetic system and suggests that a tumor suppressor in melanocytes in humans can also suppress tumor development in iridophores in lizards.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.