GliderCENTRAL

Fatal White Gene?

Posted By: Anonymous

Fatal White Gene? - 12/15/06 05:12 AM

Ok, I have heard about fatal white genes in some animals. I am wondering if there is any possibility of this in gliders. My little leu male is going to a home where his new mommy wants to pair him with a little leu female. They are third cousins, so she will not be closely inbreeding. I only know of one leu x leu pairing, which resulted in 2 healthy leu joeys. It hasn't been done consistently to know of any obvious problems. Does anyone know of any possible complications or anything to be concerned about with this pairing. I know that she wouldn't go through with it if there are any possibilities of it not being safe for the potential offspring.
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/15/06 05:15 AM

I have never heard of it but I hope for the suggies sake it isn't true. Hopefully someone will be along soon to let you know.
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/15/06 05:55 AM

I'm pretty sure this won't happen in gliders. Horses have this issue, but it occurs with dominant white alleles. Leucistic is a recessive gene so I don't think you have anything to worry about.
Posted By: BeckiT

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/15/06 06:13 AM

The only experience I have in lethal whites is realted to merle colored dogs. Some people breed 2 merles together to get a flashier dog, but it results in dogs that are mostly white and often deaf, sometimes blind as well. It's related to the missing pigment in the ears and around the eyes. It's not truly lethal in dogs, mainly called that because breeders will cull puppies that exhibit the excess white frown
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/15/06 08:36 AM

Stacie I know just as much as you do since the only person to do this was Sheila. I really hope that it is just a myth out there for suggies, like so many others. I know it happens in a few dog breeds including Dapple Dachshunds were if you breed two of them together you get Double Dapple and alot of these pups (about typed joeys) are blind or deaf. My friend has 2 double dapple brothers that the breeder was gonna just kill frown one is deaf and the other blind in one eye.
Posted By: SugarBlossoms

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/15/06 10:47 AM

How many white gliders are in the U.S? Are they all closely related at this time?

I would like to get one eventually, but don't want to pay that kind of money for a pet that might not live long. Maybe I am misunderstanding something here?
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/15/06 11:34 AM

As far as I know, there is no evidence at this time that leucistic gliders are less healthy or do not live as long as other gliders.

What the discussion is about is that the gene pool for leu gliders isn't really huge since they are so rare. Sometimes when you breed from a small gene pool for a specific trait, you have certain genes showing up that have negative affects (deafness, blindness, and in the case of Chinese Crested dogs, there is a lethal recessive allele where 1/4 puppies actually do not make it to birth, they die before they are born because the mutation is so severe).

So far there is no evidence of this happening in leu gliders. Did we ever get that glider gene database started? It would be great to keep a careful record of the phenotype frequencies in the offspring so we can trace whether or not there are lethal or deleterious (bad) alleles like this in gliders.

<----genetics nerd....gotta go to work now.
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/15/06 11:37 AM

I do not about the with gene in Suggie, I'm just starting my researc in Suggie Genetics.

However in Chinchillas the "fatal gene" is not really "fatal" to the chin or cause the chin any genetic issues. In chins, you should not bred a white to a white or TOV to TOV because that's when the "fatal gene" occurs, however basicially it just means you will have 25% less offspring.
Posted By: SugarBaby22

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/15/06 04:33 PM

Misty ~ You always beat me to it with the chins.. lol
Posted By: myangelbear77

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/15/06 08:08 PM

I agree I have only known of the "fatal white" as being a breeding issue to cause defects. I used to breed catahoulas and they are a merle dog breed color breeding was treated similar to great danes and it was not concidered responsible breeding to breed 2 merles or to breed a known "double" merle or excessive white for the risk of deafness and or blindness. The double merle could be a recessive gene in the dogs. However in the case of the gliders there is no known "defect" in any of the lue gliders to date and no history to really go by. I would say it is safe to pair two lues at this point.
Posted By: Xglider

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/15/06 08:23 PM

Interesting read here thanks!
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/15/06 08:27 PM

I know I might be stoned for saying this, but really we will never know unless more people breed two leu together. With that being sad I would hope that the people who do breed two leu together will stop breeding them IF any problems arise and let the community know.
Posted By: SugarBlossoms

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/15/06 09:02 PM

Would it be okay if a Leu and a WFB had babies? (sorry to sound dumb about this)
Posted By: myangelbear77

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/15/06 10:13 PM

Sugar - its ok breeding glider is a bit difficult to understand. Lue's are normally bred to Lue hets and yes some are also WF.
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/15/06 11:13 PM

I am not a breeder so I wanted to ask...do we usually breed leus with WFB leu hets because we are afraid of lethal alleles by crossing two leus...or do we do this because there really just aren't very many leus in the population and not many people have two leus to cross?

Posted By: myangelbear77

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/15/06 11:49 PM

I think it has been because of the small amount of lues and the posibilities to inbreed to great combined with the price. However please correct me anyone if I am wrong!
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/16/06 12:23 AM

Most have been breeding leu to wfbs (in hopes to get another haley), leu hets, cinnies and other colors. To out breed the line and or make more leu.

Leu are still closely related although you can find them far enough apart where it isn't inbreeding but more line breeding.

Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/16/06 04:24 AM

There is no proof that there would be any consequences, only speculation. The white gene may not cause any complications. We will only know if it is done. If any birth defects did occur, the breeding would stop. I don't think that it should be done generation after generation. Any offspring from this pairing should be paired with a gray glider, het or not. I honestly don't think it would hurt anything for her to try it. How will we learn anything new if no one ever tries anything new. This would give us the opportunity to find out for sure if the white gene can become lethal in gliders. Wouldn't it be wonderful to find out that it doesn't?

I believe that problems would eventually arise if you were to pair a leu to a leu, take their BEW babies and pair them to more leus, and continue for a few generations. I believe that could be dangerous. I honestly believe pairing 2 leus together for one generation will be fine. What I would be excited to see is the future breedings of their offspring. I believe 2 leus may produce leu offspring with a stronger leu gene. Right now a BEW paired to a 100% het will produce BEW offspring about 50% of the time. The future offspring from this pairing, from 2 leu parents, may have a "super" gene. They may achieve higher percentages. Maybe one of the leu offspring paired with a 100% het will produce leu joeys 75% of the time. That would be fantastic.

The only way new things are ever discovered is by someone actually taking the risks. If this is tried, and fails, the pair can be split up and we will actually have the proof to tell people in the future that it shouldn't be done because this, X happens. We won't be telling people like Frannie our speculations that it shouldn't be done because this X MIGHT happen.

Posted By: Xglider

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/16/06 04:45 AM

Originally Posted By: sil
I know I might be stoned for saying this, but really we will never know unless more people breed two leu together.


Elisabeth ……… I so want to make this joke….. So that is all it is… lol … roflmao


Elisabeth <><><> .... Just go ahead and send me one Lue… and then >>> lets see… some one else send me a Lue…. And I well work on expanding the population… K ???? dunno


I know … in know… Ha ha ha… roflmao well I have to have some fun … laugh I can wish jump … right…??? LOL… roflmao
Posted By: agilitygliders

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/16/06 05:26 AM

I would love to try this out. I have two leus hets 100% comeing in February. I might try to pair one of my leus with someone elses. I think its worth the time and effort to see if we can produce a super gene like in some WFBs of higher generations.
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/16/06 04:46 PM

I really don't think this will happen. It has nothing to do with the white. It just happens when two genes get transmitted along with the white genes. These genes contain what is causing the problem or the genes are missing what would make a normal animal.

There are tons and tons of recessive/dominant genes in many animals that have no problem with this. I really don't that one can assume just because this happens rarely in other animals, that it would also happen in gliders.

Also, per my understanding, leucistics have been paired together before, just not often. The fatal white gene happens 100% of the time when two white horses are paired, for example. If this is the case, then all of the joeys out of the paired leucistics would have been flawed, and we would already know of this problem.
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/16/06 07:46 PM

Quote:
leucistics have been paired together before, just not often


I know that Sheila paired together 2 leu and the joeys turned out fine. I heard that someone tried before Sheila did but no joeys were ever born from that pairing. So that is where the speculation came from.
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Fatal White Gene? - 12/16/06 08:16 PM

Quote:
I believe 2 leus may produce leu offspring with a stronger leu gene. Right now a BEW paired to a 100% het will produce BEW offspring about 50% of the time. The future offspring from this pairing, from 2 leu parents, may have a "super" gene. They may achieve higher percentages. Maybe one of the leu offspring paired with a 100% het will produce leu joeys 75% of the time. That would be fantastic.
I don't really think that in the case of pure leucisticism that there is a "super gene" or the potential for one. Leucisticism is a trait that is pretty likely controlled by one gene that controls how or if pigment is deposited in the fur. If the glider inherits two recessive genes for this trait, the genes will not code for the proper protein(or a defective one) for the deposition of pigment in the fur.

If it were a polygenic trait, then you might possibly see fluctuations in the phenotype ratios, but then there would probably be gradations(quantitative trait) of white, which there isn't.

In the situation with lethal stuff. I'm not sure why it happens in chinchillas exactly. The first thing that I would suspect is that there is some sort of linkage between the genes for specific colors and the genes for other potentially harmful conditions. The current captive chin populations stemmed from a pretty small captive population early on. From what I understand, they were working with a pretty closed gene pool to begin with.

With gliders, I'd be inclined to think that there is not much evidence to support that there are issues with gene linkage in respect to the leucistic gene, and hence not threat of leu x leu being "lethal". Het x Het breedings are still going to contribute similar genes to the offspring as leu x leu, however, the leu x leu combo will give more of a chance for the leu genes to inherited by babies. In het breedings, the linkage potential would still be there just as it would be in leucistics only hets have half the leu genes that a leucistic glider has. Ok, I just woke up and I'm thinking too much, I could be wrong, I'm still a novice at this whole thing and learning more everday.
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