Epidermis Is the Site of Action of Tabby (Ta) in the Mouse

The site of action of the sex-linked tabby (Ta) locus was analyzed by the technique of dermal-epidermal recombination grafting. Skin components from normal and tabby 14-day embryos were separated, recombined and grown 21 days in testes of histocompatible mice. Grafts of the combinations normal epidermis-normal dermis and normal epidermis-tabby dermis produced predominantly zig-zag hairs. Grafts of the combination tabby epidermis-normal dermis and tabby epidermis-tabby dermis produced hairs with a morphology similar to hairs found in tabby mice. We conclude from these results that the tabby locus acts within the epidermis, and has no effect on the dermis.