Epidermis is the site of action of tabby (Ta) in the mouse.
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.
D000818:Animals; D004817:Epidermis / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005799:Genes, Dominant; D006197:Hair / Q000002:abnormalities*; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008817:Mice, Mutant Strains / Q000235:genetics*; D010641:Phenotype; D014176:Protein Biosynthesis; D016038:Skin Transplantation; D014180:Transplantation / Q000379:methods