Abstract：The early body color formation of redwhite crucian carp was observed. Melanocytes firstly appear before fertilization, then xanthophores happen and later iridophore appear. And then, the body colour of redwhite crucian carp changes from dark grey to redorange after about 3 months old. the fulllength cDNAs for Slc7a11 and Pnp4a were isolated. Our results revealed that the fulllength Pnp4a cDNA contains 1 535 bp, with an open reading frame of 783 nucleotides, which encodes a deduced protein of 291 amino acids, coding for a deduced sequence alignment showed that crucian carp Pnp4a shares high levels of identity with those from Danio rerio (95.1% ). The fulllength Slc7a11 cDNA contains 1 782 bp, with an open reading frame of 1488 nucleotides, which encodes a deduced protein of 496 amino acids. The amino acid sequence alignment demonstrated that the red crucian carp Slc7a11 protein shared a sequence identity of 93.7% with Danio rerio, Oryzias latipes.The expression of Mitfa,Tyr,Slc7a11 and Pnp4a in three kinds of different color crucian carp embryos and adult tissues were detected by RTPCR. The results showed that the redwhite crucian carp has the same melanin decay process as the red crucian carp.Amino acid sequence alignment showed that Pnp4a and Slc7a11of red crucian carp share high identity with those from Cyprinus carpio.The adult skin tissue of the redwhite crucian carp was detected the expression of Mitfa and Tyr,so did the adult skin tissue of the red crucian carp.Pnp4a was expressed in different body color development stages and different tissues of different crucian carp.Slc7a11 was expressed in different body color development stages of different crucian carp. However,it was not detected in different adult skin tissues of different crucian carp.
