Figure 1.
CBD103 gene expression in North American gray wolves. (A) Coat color polymorphism in North American gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park, in which coat color can be gray or black (photo credit Dan Stahler/National Park Service photo). Black coat color is dominantly inherited, conferred by a 3 base pair coding deletion in CBD103. (B) CBD103 expression, relative to expression in dog testis, across tissues of a recently deceased pregnant female Kyy wolf. Error bars represent standard errors across RT-qPCR replicates (2–3 replicates per tissue). A single tissue sample was collected for each tissue except fetus and placenta, which each represent 2 tissue samples (i.e., from 2 fetuses). (C) Absolute expression of annotated beta defensins in epidermal keratinocytes (N = 23), fibroblasts (N = 6), and whole blood (N = 25; (Charruau et al. 2016)) from North American gray wolves. Only CBD103 is highly expressed in keratinocytes.