Red carp and red crucian carp are ornamental fish with a red body color. Unlike in red crucian carp, no melanophores are observed in red carp embryos or larvae. To explore the roles of the mitfa gene in body color formation in red carp, we investigated the structural characteristics and physicochemical properties of the mitfa gene in 16 kinds of fish. The mitfa amino acid sequence similarity between red carp and red crucian carp was 95.6%, and this was 91.5% similar between carp and zebrafish. Compared with red crucian carp, red carp showed lower tyrp1 messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) expression but similar mitfa mRNA expression in the body pigment stage of the embryo. Moreover, mitfa⁺ cells as well as melanocytes could be observed in cultured embryo cells derived from red carp and red crucian carp. Our data show that the absence of melanophores in red carp is not the result of mitfa gene deletion or mutation, increasing our understanding of the molecular and genetic mechanisms of coloration in cyprinid fish.

中文翻译：

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黑色素生产不足导致红鲤早期发育中缺乏黑素细胞

红鲤鱼和cru鱼是具有红色身体颜色的观赏鱼。与红cru鱼不同，在红鱼胚胎或幼虫中没有观察到黑素细胞。为了探讨mitfa基因在红鲤鱼体色形成中的作用，我们研究了mitfa基因在16种鱼类中的结构特征和理化特性。鲤鱼和cru鱼之间的mitfa氨基酸序列相似性为95.6％，鲤鱼和斑马鱼之间的mitfa氨基酸序列相似性为91.5％。与红cru鱼相比，红鱼在胚胎的体内色素阶段显示出较低的tyrp1信使核糖核酸（mRNA）表达，但mitfa mRNA表达相似。而且，mitfa在来自红鲤鱼和红cru鱼的培养的胚胎细胞中可以观察到⁺细胞以及黑素细胞。我们的数据表明，红鲤鱼中没有黑素细胞不是mitfa基因缺失或突变的结果，这加深了我们对塞浦路斯鱼类着色的分子和遗传机制的了解。