Asebia, a Mutation Affecting Sebaceous Glands, Mouse

Abstract

Homozygous mice carrying the asebia mutation ab or ab ^J are characterized by defective sebaceous glands and other cutaneous abnormalities (ab: Gates and Karasek 1965; Josefowicz and Hardy 1978a; ab ^J: Pennycuik et al. 1986). At 7 days of age, homozygous asebic mice display impaired hair growth. Alopecia increases in severity with successive hair cycles, and eventually only scattered hairs are present. The fine epidermal scaling is generally mild but tends to become more severe with aging. Asebic mice are light sensitive and have pruritus of the eyelids, and a sticky exudate typically encrusts the eyes (Fig. 280). They have a distinctive odor of undetermined origin. The severity of these phenotypic features varies, either due to genetic background or to allelic differences between the two known independent mutations, ab or ab ^J (Pennycuik et al. 1986).