>well...we are finally moving...we leave Monday the 3rd for Utah...
>Tooele, pronounced Too-will'-ah, it is near Salt Lake...
 
LOL, Kat!
 
Part of Steve's family is from there for a few generations and his Aunt
Louise and cousins are there still.  The town paper did a retrospective
on their family a year or three ago.
 
BTW, they pronounce it with the "oo" so contracted that it is pretty
much lost, more T(o)will-ah.  (Of course, Setauket which is one of my
family's ancestral homes on L.I.  is pronounced SEE-tawk-et by many of
the "newcomers" (i.e. anyone after 1958 when developments began), but
those of us from old time families say Se-TAU(L)-ket, and one of the old
spellings is "Settlekot".  So, things drift... Steve just got home; he
said that both ways of saying Tooele are heard these days just like both
ways of saying Setauket are, and that like where I grew up there was a
sudden growth explosion.  If you want to confuse people into thinking
you have been there a long time take accent lessons from Aunt Louise!
LOL!  ;-) ---
 
>About 5 weeks ago my friend picked up a panda baby with a blaze
>marking from animal control.
 
?  A panda is a white head.  A blaze is a white head marking.  It
wouldn't be possible to see a blaze on a panda head, just as it isn't
possible to see a panda head on an albino or DEW.  There is no way to
know at this point if the ferret has always had that marking so offhand
it can't be said to be roaning, or seasonal coloration, or neural crest
unless there are other symptoms of neural crest genetic variant.  If
the ferret is one with neural crest genetic variant markings -- what
is commonly called Waardenburg Syndrome -- know that in recent years
geneticist, Dr. Brett Middleton, has pointed out that the KIT Oncogene's
syndrome form of neural crest variant better fits the markings and
medical problems seen in these ferrets as a group than Waardenburg
Syndrome does.
 
What other areas lack pigment?
 
It sounds like he hears so that is good.  He may just have a seasonal
coat that looks that way or may be roaned, instead of having had the
markings for life.  It is still possible that he has a neural crest
variation because it shows what is called "variable expression" meaning
that not all symptoms show up in all individuals and the degree can
vary, too.
 
When a neural crest variant like the KIT Oncogene expresses itself very
fully a lot of problems can be seen and these ferrets should get earlier
and more frequent old age exams than others.  When looking at what is
documented across species there can be skull malformations, partial or
full hearing loss, an increased rate of malignancy, an increased rate of
multiple fingers or of them being joined (polydactyly and syndactyly),
an increased rate of cardiomyopathy (now thought to perhaps be due to
changes to sympathetic nerves (so not only changes at the time of the
cardiac-neural crest), jaws may be unable to open fully, dysphagia
(trouble swallowing) is documented in some species, with KIT there can
be GI problems due to innervation gone wrong, due to some suggestive
evidence some human kidney problems including cystine ones came under
study starting last year in relation to neural crest variations thanks to
NIH's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases,
etc.  (It may interest you that our two who develop cystine urinary tract
stones on high protein diets but not on 35% protein diets both have KIT
Oncogene types of markings.)
 
Just a little background: in the early fetus before there is anything as
focused as actual organs (and certainly not features) there are "crests"
of highly undifferentiated cells which migrate to various regions and
differentiate into a number of cell types.  One very early crest is the
cardiac-neural crest which then splits into the more differentiated
cardiac crest (later heart and vascular) and the neural crest.  The
neural crest cells become some skull structures, pigment cells, some
hearing structures, and of course a lot of the neurological structures.
Happening so early in the fetus shows one reason why the "expression" of
the changes can be so varied and widely spread.  Also, because structural
development and "upkeep" is so affected by innervation it appears be that
altering innervation can have widespread and varied results.  (Yes, it is
a really bad idea to breed ferrets with neural crest variation markings,
but there was a time when so many were bred for the extra money they
garnered that the genetics for this are too widely spread in U.S.
ferrets now.)
[Posted in FML issue 5018]