Genetics of Silver and Gold

[silverfish]

This is only a very brief overview copied over from another forum but it might be useful. Please note that this is a simplification of what probably goes on in real life. In particular, the red or 'rufusing' gene's role is highly contested.

You will need some prior knowledge of how genes and genetics work to understand the rest of this.

I- gives smoke when non-agouti (aa) but is either shaded or chinchilla when agouti (A-).

Whether it's chinchilla or shaded then depends on the wideband gene.

WbWb = chinchilla
Wbwb = shaded
wbwb = silver/golden tabby
There is no effect in non-tabby silvered cats - which are all always smoke (or pewter).

Rufousing genes cause cats with silvering (I-) to turn golden. In reality these are polygenes that work in conjunction but we can just go with the idea that there's just one recessive allele, I think...

So:
rfrf = golden (if already silver)
Rf- = normal (silver)

To summarise:

A- I- WbWb = chinchilla
A- I- Wbwb = shaded
A- I- wbwb = silver tabby
aa I- = smoke
A- I- WbWb rfrf = golden chinchilla
A- I- Wbwb rfrf = golden shaded
A- I- wbwb rfrf = golden tabby
aa I- rfrf = golden smoke