Plasma samples of 235 foxes from 38 complete families (14 of arctic foxes, 21 of silver foxes and 3 with arctic X silver fox hybrid offspring) were analysed by one-dimensional horizontal polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) pH 9.0 followed by general-protein staining of gels. A major postalbumin of fox plasma was identified as alB-glycoprotein (alB) by using immunoblotting with antiser m specific to human or pig plasma a l B . Four codominant, autosomal alleles of a , B were found in arctic foxes. Two transferrin (TF) alleles (Tf ", Tf") were observed in arctic foxes and two ( T f D , T f f ) in silver foxes; the TF F type of both of the fox species showed identical electrophoretic mobilities. The arctic foxes showed a high degree of polymorphism for both TF and alB. The silver foxes showed a scarce polymorphism of TF and were monomorphic for alB. The arctic fox, silver fox and their hybrids could be clearly differentiated from one another by their plasma protein patterns obtained by the PAGE method.
About 50 % of the Finnish farm bred blue foxes have a Robertsonian translocation in a heterozygous form, whereas the distributions of the homozygous form 2n = 48 and the 2 n = 50 karyotype with two acrocentric autosome pairs seem to be nearly equal. The effect on fertility exerted by the heterozygous Robertsonian translocation was studied on the material from a blue fox farm in Finland during four years. It is concluded that there is a tendency to litter size reduction in mating groups 2n = 49 compared to the 2n = 48 and 2n = 50 mating groups.In this investigation, the 2n = 48 chromosome constitution in parental blue fox groups has every year had a slight tendency to increase the litter size. In addition, the segregation of the karyotypes within the litters of the parental 2n = 49 mating groups is in favour of the 2n = 48 karyotype. Hence, an evolutional tendency towards lower chromosome number without any acrocentric autosomes seems to be indicated.
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