Figure 1

2D structure of the rabbit MC1R protein with indicated the positions of the two in-frame deletions already described [35] and of the new mutation associated with the Japanese brindling coat colour. The two and ten amino acids shaded in grey and red are those that are deleted in the rabbit c.280_285del6 (E^Dor E^S) and c.304_333del30 (e) alleles, respectively [35]. The two amino acids shaded in red and black are those deleted in the newly identified c.[124A;125_130del6] allele (e^J). The red hatched is substituted in the e^Jallele. The E^Dor E^S, e and e^Jalleles have been also indicated as Δ6^DS, Δ30, Δ6^J, respectively. Circles bordered by a thick black line and/or coloured in blue represent the activating amino acids substitutions that have been previously reported to be associated to dominant eumelanic phenotypes in several animal species [4, 10, 13, 16, 20, 27–29]. The deletions observed in jaguar, jaguarundi and squirrel [23, 24] have been surrounded by a black dotted, a black bold dotted and a blue bold dotted line, respectively. The inset at the right top shows the secondary structure diagram of the whole protein with evidenced the region enlarged below it.