More recently, scientists have had great success in explaining the molecular underpinnings of orange cats. Now they’ve opened the lid on this long-standing mystery. This innovative study required significant outreach and collaboration with feline guardians and breeders. Most recently, the study has highlighted the exact genetic mutation that provides these furry friends their unique color. Research led at teams at Stanford University and Japan’s Kyushu University released those studies in the journal Current Biology.
The research teams had to extract nearly 200 samples just to study orange cats. This new‐found effort adds to a growing diverse line-up of more than 3,000 samples that really highlight this amazing coloration pattern. The scientists identified a critical alteration: a small piece of missing DNA that triggers the orange mutation in these felines. This mutation activates the ARHGAP36 gene, which is typically dormant in pigment cells in other cats but becomes functional in orange cats.
“We’ve known for more than a century that orange cats inherit their coloring differently from other mammals,” said Christopher Kaelin, a geneticist at Stanford and the lead author of the study. His team’s partnership with cat owners was key to collecting these data for this important study.
Kaelin and his orthopedic research team reached out to cat owners to ask for participation in the study, and they were blown away by how many came forward. “Cat owners and breeders are really open to genetic studies and contributing to genetic studies,” Kaelin noted. With so many passionate participants, there was no lack of excitement in wanting to share personal information about each participant’s cat, imparting a personal element to the scientific venture.
Through the entire research process, which included field work at almost 100 cat shows, Kaelin had not only performed sample collections but discussed research findings. They’re very interested in their cats, but more importantly, they’re very interested in communicating about their cats and sending pictures back which we’ve done through this whole study. That whole burst of interest made it super easy to connect and collect samples—from that alone,” he said.
In the lab, scientists isolated DNA from all of the samples they’d gathered, looking for differences in sequences from orange and non-orange cats. Kaelin described this meticulous work, stating, “Then in the lab, we could extract DNA from those samples and compare. We would then sequence portions of the genome and compare the sequences within those regions between orange and non-orange cats, looking for differences that might be the mutation that causes orange coat color.”
Their collaboration didn’t stop outside the cat shows. In addition to conducting outreach with the help of the citizen scientists, the research teams collaborated closely with these spay-neuter clinics. Greg Barsh, a professor of genetics at Stanford, is the senior author of the paper. He asserted that community engagement is essential to moving the field of science forward. Both of those examples with cat shows and working with spay-neuter clinics are prime examples of how beneficial it is for connecting with the community to connect with science and science education. More generally, it promotes science and no cats are harmed,” Barsh said.
Scientists have pinpointed the genetic mutation responsible for orange coloration in cats. Specifically, this discovery represents the first feline genetic modifier to be identified and characterized. This work not only fulfills an important scientific curiosity but greatly improves our understanding of inheritance patterns in these remarkable animals. The findings may have broader implications for genetics research beyond just orange cats, as they shed light on gene activation mechanisms.