Por trás das pelagens dos equídeos – Revisão de Literatura –.

Coat color is the name given to the color of the sum of the coat of the skin, fur, mane, tail and extremity of horses and is used mainly to identify them. The objective was to carry out this literature review on the genetics of coats and peculiarities of equines to avoid economic losses in production and expand the horse’s agribusiness. The coat is determined by several genes and pairs of alleles that will influence the distribution of melanocytic cells and the type of pigment. There are two types of pigments that give rise to equine coats, eumelanin and pheomelanin. These pigments are regulated by the activation or inactivation of the surface receptor on the melanocyte called MC1R and by the action of surface receptors encoded by the extension locus and agouti locus. From the action of pigments, other modifying and diluting genes can act, originating the variations of coats. The particularities of depigmented skin and white hair are explained by independent mutations in the MITF and PAX3 genes, and variants in the EDNRB and KIT genes. When the KIT and MITF loci act together, there is an increase in the extent of depigmented particularities in the phenotype. The genetic study of coats is necessary for the correct identification of horses, as well as avoiding diseases and economic losses and helping to expand the horse’s agribusiness [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]