An Autosomal Recessive Blind Mutant in the Chicken

A type of blindness due to lack of rods and cones in the retina was found to be controlled by a single autosomal recessive gene, rc. The mutation was first identified in the second generation descendants of a male carrying an ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) induced chromosome translocation involving one arm of the Z sex chromosome and the long (q) arm of chromosome 3. A linkage test between the locus causing the blindness and the translocation break-point on chromosome 3 was not significant. There is no proof that the mutation was EMS induced.