1995 Volume 41 Issue 1 Pages 47-55
The possible application of a computer-based color image processor system (SPICCA-2, Nippon Avionics & Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan) for the quantitative description of coat-color patterns in artificially produced aggregation chimeras of mice was investigated. The system is capable of extracting information essential to the quantitative description of coat-color patterns from sampled images of the pelts. In the present series of experiments, coat-color patterns of 6 BALB/c ⇔ C57BL/6 chimeras were quantitatively analyzed by means of the SPICCA-2 system. In those chimeras, the proportion of two allogeneic components, BALB/c and C57BL/6, was relatively well balanced between the left and the right halves of the pelt. However, some chimeras tended to have an unbalanced pigment distribution between the anterior and posterior regions. The results are in essential agreement with the findings reported earlier by Tachi et al. (1991) on C3H/HeN ⇔ BALB/cA chimeras.
