ABSTRACT
The depilated (dep) mutation arose spontaneously in 1966 at the Jackson Laboratory in a stock carrying brachury (T) and tufted (tf). Due to an abnormally thin and short first coat of truncal hair, dep/dep mice can be identified as early as 1 week of age. Cleared, unstained whole-mounts of skin from dep/dep mice revealed that there was disorientation of many hair follicles. Clumps of pigment were found in what were interpreted to be the remains of degenerative follicles. Examination of the hair shafts revealed that approximately 20% had either irregular septa or complete interruption of the normal septal pattern. Dermal-epidermal recombination grafts determined that the depilated locus was active with no action of the mutant dermis on hair structure. The depilated mutation is preserved in the Jackson Laboratory Frozen Embryo Repository on the B6C3Fe a/a hybrid background. DNA extracts are available from the Mouse DNA Resource at the Jackson Laboratory.
