Table 2. Experimental Groups.

Strain Name	Hair Colour	Genetic Composition
Mc1re	yellow	lacks functional MC1R
Tg-Mc1re	agouti	nonfunctional MC1R rescued with human MC1R transgene
Ay-Jkn1	yellow	normal MC1R, antagonized by ASP overexpression
control Ay-Jkn1	black	normal MC1R but no ASP expression

Adult male and female mice used in this study were; Mc1r^e , recessive yellow mice, which are null mutants with a non-functional MC1R resulting in a yellow coat colour and their littermate controls Tg- Mc1r^e, which are recessive yellow mice whose non-functioning MC1R is rescued with human MC1R and have an agouti coat colour. A^y-Jkn1 are agouti signalling protein (ASP) over-expressing mice with a functioning mouse MC1R resulting in a yellow coat colour and their littermate controls, control non- A^y-Jkn1 , are mice that do not over-express ASP and have a functioning mouse MC1R and a black coat colour.