Laboratories

Which laboratories test for which variant, and what each product does not cover

The material on this page is drawn from the Global Cat Health Survey 2026, which is where its sources and its declarations of interest are set out in full.

Which laboratories test for which variant

Eight dominant blue eye products are on sale, from seven organisations, and no two of them cover the same variants. What a result means therefore depends on which laboratory produced it. Two of the eight identified variants, DBE^NAD and DBE^MARU, appear on no public catalogue read by the survey. The other six can all be tested for, though only by one laboratory.

Three of the eight cover DBE^RE alone and two cover DBE^ALT alone. One covers two variants, one covers three, and one covers six. No laboratory covers all eight variants: DBE^NAD and DBE^MARU are on no commercial panel anywhere, and the best single product on the market covers six of the eight. That product is the only route to either Chinese variant, so for two of the six a result depends on one laboratory in one country.

This register holds four results from ZOOGEN, on four British Shorthairs of one Polish cattery, and they are the reason the column headed not covered matters. Each says DBE-ALT/n and each says nothing at all about the other five variants, so not one of those four cats is clear and not one is shown to be free of the line attributed to it. A result records what was looked for. The proposal writes that distinction into the status itself, as clear for the panel named.

Two of the products are complementary rather than overlapping. GENINDEXE in France tests DBE^ALT and DBE^CEL (Roxi), neither of which the German laboratories detect, and the German laboratories test DBE^RE, which GENINDEXE does not. A cat clear for the panel named in one country is untested in the other. The laboratory directory records the full offering of each.

Suppose a registry requires a PAX3 test before a cat may be registered. Any one of the seven products satisfies that wording. If the cat carries DBE^ALT and the panel bought covers DBE^RE alone, the result comes back negative, the rule is met, and nothing has been run for the variant that is actually present. A rule written that way records that a test was purchased. It does not record that the variant present was looked for. A rule naming the variants to be covered, or the panel to be used, would.

Separating a pointed blue eye from a variant, and which laboratories can do it

A pointed cat is blue-eyed because it is pointed. The codes are 31 Burmese, 32 Tonkinese or mink and 33 colourpoint, and each lightens the eye on its own. Where a cat carries one of them the blue eye has an ordinary cause, and this register does not read it as evidence of a variant. The rule is set out on the method page.

Some cats carry both codes. A handful in this register are written with a pointing factor and a dominant blue eye code on the same line, for example BSH as 09 11 33 68. Two causes of a pale eye then stand on one animal and no document separates them. Separating them takes two tests, not one: a PAX3 panel for the variant, and a test at the colourpoint locus for the pointing.

What the pointing is, and why it is not classified by breed

The pointing is one gene and the same two alleles in every breed. The gene is TYR, tyrosinase, called locus C on a test list. Four alleles of it matter here: C, full colour; c^b, the Burmese allele; c^s, the Siamese allele; and c, albino. Two copies of c^s give a colourpoint cat with blue eyes. Two copies of c^b give a sepia, usually gold or green eyed. One of each gives a mink, usually aqua.

This is the opposite of the DBE variants. The pointing alleles are the same two alleles wherever they are found, so a test at TYR works on any cat regardless of breed. Where a laboratory lists a breed against its colourpoint test, that is who the product is sold to and not a limit on what it detects.

What does differ is which of the two alleles a product reports. Of the 6 laboratories in this directory selling a test at this locus, 5 report both the Siamese and the Burmese allele and 1 reports the Siamese allele only. A cat clear on a Siamese-only test can still carry the Burmese allele, so that result does not rule out the pointing series as the cause of a pale eye. A test for albinism is a different test again: it looks at the c allele and not at the two that make a point, a mink or a sepia.

7 of the 58 laboratories in this directory sell a PAX3 dominant blue eye test and 6 sell a test at the colourpoint locus. 3 sell both. Those 3 are the only places in the directory where one sample answers both questions, and each of them reports both pointing alleles: ANTAGENE, LABOKLIN, PetGeno / 宠知因. Everywhere else the two tests mean two laboratories, two samples and two invoices, which is a practical reason a cat coded both ways stays untested.

PAX3 DBE by breed, and what can be tested

Dominant blue eyes is not a single entity. It comprises at least six genetic variants, each of which arose in a different animal, and which have dispersed between breeds by outcrossing. The table lists every breed and population in which one of them has been recorded, the route by which it arrived, and whether a commercial test is currently available. One row per breed. Colour indicates testability.

How the breed table above is constructed

The three middle columns separate origin from arrival. Arose in this breed means the variant was first described in a cat of that breed. Arrived from elsewhere means it was introduced by outcrossing, either as a named variant or as a line whose variant has not been identified. Also reported records claims put to the survey by a breeder or by a self-published compilation at messybeast.com and not verified here; those entries are leads for checking rather than findings.

Each entry carries its own grade of evidence. One breed can rest on two grades at once, so the grade belongs to the entry and not to the row. An entry in the first two columns rests on a genotyped cat of that breed, unless it is marked (pedigree), which means descent traced to the founder of a named line whose variant has not been identified. Every entry in the third column is unverified. The Devon Rex row shows both: Gosha line (pedigree) under arrival, and DBE^CEL (Roxi) under report.

Where two documents give the same cat different codes, the certificate governs. A registration certificate carries the code in full, as the registry issued it. A pedigree database entry is a transcription of that certificate and does not always reproduce it: eye codes in particular are dropped. Where the survey holds both, the certificate is recorded and the database variance is noted against it. Where only the database entry exists, it is used and named as the source.

Four breeds and populations originated a variant. The Maine Coon for DBE^RE and DBE^AGO, the population behind the Altai for DBE^ALT, a Kazakh domestic shorthair for DBE^CEL (Roxi), and Chinese domestic shorthairs for the two variants described in 2025. The Céleste is not among them: the breed carries the variant's name, but the variant was introduced to it by outcross. All other entries appear under arrival, and for most breeds that placement is an inference from the founding-effect analysis and from the variant's name rather than a route traced animal by animal.

The British Shorthair is the exception, where the route is traced. It carries DBE^ALT in the Seymour and Nanotigr lines and the published analysis follows both. Fyodor, the random-bred cat noticed at Ust-Kamenogorsk in 1995 or 1996, is the founding cat of the Altai. Nikita'l Seymour, is a silver tabby of the Topaz and one of its two founding studs. They are two different animals carrying the same variant, and the line named for the second is the one that reaches the British. The Nanotigr line was founded by a male named Oliver, from a Russian cattery, registered as a British Shorthair and probably descended from early Altai cats. One of the three DBE^ALT homozygotes recorded in Abitbol et al., Animals 2024;14:1845, Table 2 was a Nanotigr cat. The British is therefore a substantial holder of the variant rather than an incidental one.

Two of the eight variants are confined to China. DBE^cDc and DBE^xHW, both identified in 2025, have been recorded only in certain regions of China, in the domestic cat population there and in Abyssinians within it. They are included because they are identified, and in one case testable, and not because a carrier has been found outside that population. Each of the other variants was similarly confined at an earlier point.

A row is not a statement about a breed as a whole. Different catteries within one breed may hold different variants, so a row records what has been found somewhere in that breed and does not indicate uniformity. The British Shorthair row demonstrates the point: DBE^ALT is testable, while Nadeya, Igor, Oliver and Marusya are not. One route into the breed can be tested for and four cannot, which is why a clear panel result does not clear a British cat.

A reported row is an invitation rather than a conclusion. Anyone able to supply a genotype result or a traced pedigree for one of them is invited to send it to info@belleayr.com, and the row will be reclassified with the evidence recorded against it. DBE^AGO is the Agostino line and DBE^RE is the Rociri Elvis line, and the two are named separately here because the codes are close enough to be read for one another.

Two distinct reasons a test may not identify what a blue-eyed cat carries

First, the variant is identified but is not offered commercially. This applies to three variants. Five of the eight identified variants can be tested today. The other three are DBE^xHW, identified in September 2025 and never added to any panel, and DBE^NAD and DBE^MARU, both published in 2026 and not yet offered anywhere. For DBE^xHW the remedy is the addition of a marker whose sequence is already known. DBE^NAD is the harder case: it is not a point change but a rearrangement spanning about 6.3 million bases, and its own authors say further work is needed to characterise it fully before a test can be offered.

Second, the variant has not been identified. twenty blue-eyed lines in this register have no identified variant, among them Nadeya, Igor, Marusya, Malvina, Karagaisky and Gosha. There is no target on which to build an assay, so no laboratory can offer one. The remedy is research, and it is the least costly research identified in the survey. Six of those lines are named and given a code of their own in the proposal, which is Igor, Nadeya, Marusya, Karagaisky, Malvina and King's Way; Gosha is among the rest, held on one record with no descent, which is why it takes no code yet.

The distinction between those two obstacles determines what a registry may reasonably say. Where a line's variant has not been identified, a clear panel result narrows the risk without clearing the animal, and the accurate statement is that the work has not been done.

On a reported row, a green cell indicates that the claim is checkable rather than confirmed. The variant named has a commercial test, so a single swab would resolve the entry either way.

The four published variants are available from more than one laboratory. The laboratory that identified the two Chinese variants sells a panel of five, and sells it by number rather than by name, so a result arrives as DBE2 positive rather than as the name of a variant. The numbers are the laboratory's own product codes and carry no scientific meaning. Its published list gives the mapping, which is set out here because a result cannot otherwise be interpreted:

The panel now runs to six. It carries DBE1 to DBE6 for DBE^CEL (Roxi), DBE^RE, DBE^ALT, DBE^AGO, DBE^cDc and DBE^xHW, sold singly as well as together. Until DBE6 was listed, a cat carrying DBE^xHW returned a clear result on every product sold anywhere. The code for each variant is given in the eight variants table on the Introduction, which is why the mapping is not repeated here.

A result reported as DBE2 positive is therefore a Rociri Elvis result. The sixth variant, DBE^xHW, is DBE6, the newest on the panel.

Thirteen breeds and populations rest on a genotyped cat, four on a traced pedigree, and approximately thirty on unverified report. Six of the eight identified variants have already crossed breed boundaries; the remaining two are at present confined to a single population, which is the position the others occupied before they dispersed. DBE^MARU joins the first group on the day it was named: its line was founded on an outbred domestic shorthair and carried into the Exotic Shorthair, the Persian and the British. DBE^NAD has now crossed one too. Its own authors record that the line was never outcrossed, meaning it was kept within the British genetic background, and that was true of the material they tested. It is no longer true of the line. The register traces it out of the British breeds and into the Scottish ones through three cats in three generations: Faberge Ermine Trace, British Shorthair, BRI ny 11 08 61, born 7 April 2022; his son Gianpaolo Ermine Trace, Scottish Straight, SCS ny 11 08 61, 14 May 2024; and his daughter WoollyRays Iya Ermine Trace, Scottish Straight, SCS ny 24 08 61, 14 May 2025. All three carry the eye code and the breed changes at the second. The dam side of the last of them is a Scottish Fold line, so a dominant blue eye determinant and a fold breeding programme now meet in one pedigree. The list is open.

Genotyped and pedigree rows: Abitbol M, CORIN and DBE variants in cats, presentation to the World Cat Federation 2026; Abitbol et al., Animal Genetics 2024 and Animals 2024; Rudd Garcés et al., G3 2024; Abitbol et al., Animal Genetics 2025. Reported rows: Blue-Eyed Breeds, messybeast.com, a long-running independent effort to document the dominant blue eye lines and to correct the record where breed names and variant names have been conflated, cited by Abitbol in the presentation above. It is not peer reviewed, which is a statement about publication route rather than about rigour: the site is compiled independently, with no commercial interest in the outcome, works from pedigrees and breeder records, and marks its own uncertainty, and much of the chronology of these lines is recorded nowhere else. That is distinct from a claim made in the marketing material of a company selling the test. Its page on the Australian and Asian lines carries several populations together and they are separate: DBE^cDc and DBE^xHW were identified in Chinese domestic cats, and an untested Australian line in tropical north Queensland is recorded on the same page as a distinct case. The page does not place either Chinese variant in Australia, and the survey does not either.

Three populations recorded as leads rather than as variants

Three further populations appear in the messybeast.com compilation and none of them is an identified variant. They are listed here so that the difference between a lead and a finding stays visible.

• The north Queensland line, Australia. A litter of four with three blue-eyed kittens and one odd-eyed, the odd-eyed kitten nearly solid black, which is what rules out white spotting as the explanation and is why the line is of interest. Samples were submitted for DNA testing and the working question is whether it is the same variant as an imported Céleste from the Chatterie d'Aerlin line or a further one at the same locus. Nothing has been genotyped. Reported.
• The Chengge mao, China. A local variety selected for mouse-catching, white with a coloured tail, which began producing blue-eyed cats. Blue-eyed solid colour cats are bred and sold in parts of China with no control over the breeding and the genes involved are unidentified. One breeder reported half the kittens of a blue-eyed to blue-eyed mating solid white and dead at or before birth, which is consistent with two incompatible blue eye variants meeting but is equally consistent with other causes, and no test was done. Reported.
• Blue-eyed Burmillas, Burmese and Tonkinese. Blue eyes occur in these lines and are attributed to the colourpoint route rather than to PAX3: DNA testing has identified the colourpoint allele in some Burmillas, and aquamarine eyes appear where the Burmese sepia allele meets the colourpoint allele. A line of blue-eyed Tonkinese continues to produce blue-eyed sepias and minks. This is the clearest ordinary demonstration of the point made throughout this directory, that a blue eye is not a variant. Not a dominant blue eye.

Source for the three: Blue-Eyed Breeds: Australian mutation, Chinese mutations, blue-eyed Burmillas, Burmese and Tonkinese, messybeast.com. The two Chinese variants on that page were identified by PetGeno, DBE^cDc in Chinese domestic cats and in a line of DBE Abyssinians from the BEAST cattery in China, and DBE^xHW in Chinese domestic cats. The laboratory has since stated both itself, in a public post of October 2025: DBE^cDc identified August 2025 in Chinese domestic cats and detected in Abyssinians afterwards, DBE^xHW confirmed September 2025, both said to follow the same dominant inheritance as the published variants. Its own material names PAX3 for DBE^xHW, calling it the sixth identified PAX3 mutation, and names no gene for DBE^cDc; it gives a position for neither, so neither can be drawn on the locus figure. The Abyssinian detection is a breed entry, and it is the only one of the eight variants to enter a registered breed with no publication behind it at all.

What the register holds in each breed group

The table above is written by hand. This one is computed from the register every time the site is built. The hand-written table carries the route a variant took into a breed and whether a test can be bought for it; this one carries everything entered since that table was last revised. Where the two disagree, this one is the record and the other is the reading of it.

On the record counts cats whose own entry names a variant or a line. In the ancestry only counts what stands above cats of that breed group by recorded parent links and appears on none of their own records, which is the upward trace. A figure beside a name is the number of cats.

A label is not always a variant. Some entries here record where a cat came from rather than what it carries, and a few record that the source could not decide: a cat filed as Siberian, Altai or Barnaul unconfirmed has been given no variant by anybody. They are listed because leaving them out would make the register look more settled than it is.