Dengfeng Guan, Shuyan Sun, Lingyun Song, Pengpeng Zhao, Yonggang Nie, Xin Huang, Wenliang Zhou, Li Yan, Yinghu Lei, Yibo Hu, Fuwen Wei
Brown-and-white giant pandas (hereafter brown pandas) are distinct coat color mutants found exclusively in the Qinling Mountains, Shaanxi, China. However, its genetic mechanism has remained unclear since their discovery in 1985. Here, we identified the genetic basis for this coat color variation using a combination of field ecological data, population genomic data, and a CRISPR-Cas9 knockout mouse model. We de novo assembled a long-read-based giant panda genome and resequenced the genomes of 35 giant pandas, including two brown pandas and two family trios associated with a brown panda...
March 12, 2024: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America