One way to skin a cat

Nice story from Ed Yong on gene interactions in coat patterning. Beautiful photo, a good explanation of coat pattern genetics and protein diffusions, and even a Java applet of Turing reaction-diffusions to play with. In the story, Ed links to a previous story of his (which I think I sent) on pattern mixing in fish that included this classic image:

But back to today's story:

Ed Yong, "One way to skin a cat – same genes behind blotches of tabbies and king cheetahs"

Top of the story:
The cheetah's spots look like the work of a skilled artist, who has delicately dabbed dots of ink upon the animal's coat. By contrast, the king cheetah – a rare breed from southern Africa – looks like the same artist had a bad day and knocked the whole ink pot over. With thick stripes running down its back, and disorderly blotches over the rest of its body, the king cheetah looks so unusual that it was originally considered a separate species. Its true nature as a mutant breed was finally confirmed in 1981 when two captive spotted females each gave birth to a king.

Two teams of scientists, led by Greg Barsh from the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology and Stephen O'Brien from the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research have discovered the gene behind the king cheetah's ink-stains. And it's the same gene that turns a mackerel-striped tabby cat into a blotched "classic" one.

Back in 2010, Eduardo Eizirik, one of O'Brien's team, found a small region of DNA that seemed to control the different markings in mackerel and blotched tabbies. But, we only have a rough draft ...