Identification and confirmation of quantitative trait loci regulating alcohol consumption in congenic strains of mice.
BACKGROUND
C57BL/6 inbred mice prefer alcohol whereas DBA/2 mice avoid it. We describe the construction of congenic strains of mice in which DBA/2 alleles for alcohol avoidance were placed on a C57BL/6 background using phenotypic selection.


METHODS
Mice were primed to drink 10% v/v ethanol in water for 2 days before a two-bottle choice paradigm. N2 males who demonstrated an alcohol-avoidance phenotype were backcrossed to B6 females to construct 15 independent lines.


RESULTS
Eight of these lines were lost due to failure to breed or absence of males with an alcohol-avoidance phenotype. The remaining sublines were split to form a total of 21 sublines. In the N7 and N9 generations, a genome scan located provisional quantitative trait loci (QTLs) on chromosomes 1, 2, 3, 6, and 9. Progeny testing confirmed QTLs on chromosomes 1 and 2.


CONCLUSIONS
The QTL on chromosome 2 overlaps the 95% confidence interval of Alcp1 whereas that on chromosome 1 is new and has been called Alcp5. Marker-assisted selection was used in the N9 and subsequent generations to maintain the congenic lines and produce congenic strains.
Whatley
V J
VJ
Alcohol Research Center, Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado, Boulder 80309-0447, USA. Valerie.Whatley@colorado.edu
Johnson
T E
TE
Erwin
V G
VG
D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000235:genetics*; D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D005819:Genetic Markers; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D020297:Mice, Congenic; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008811:Mice, Inbred DBA; D019655:Quantitative Trait, Heritable
D005819:Genetic Markers