Genetic dissection of a behavioral quantitative trait locus shows that Rgs2 modulates anxiety in mice.
Here we present a strategy to determine the genetic basis of variance in complex phenotypes that arise from natural, as opposed to induced, genetic variation in mice. We show that a commercially available strain of outbred mice, MF1, can be treated as an ultrafine mosaic of standard inbred strains and accordingly used to dissect a known quantitative trait locus influencing anxiety. We also show that this locus can be subdivided into three regions, one of which contains Rgs2, which encodes a regulator of G protein signaling. We then use quantitative complementation to show that Rgs2 is a quantitative trait gene. This combined genetic and functional approach should be applicable to the analysis of any quantitative trait.
Yalcin
Binnaz
B
Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7BN, UK.
Willis-Owen
Saffron A G
SA
Fullerton
Jan
J
Meesaq
Anjela
A
Deacon
Robert M
RM
Rawlins
J Nicholas P
JN
Copley
Richard R
RR
Morris
Andrew P
AP
Flint
Jonathan
J
Mott
Richard
R
D000818:Animals; D021461:Animals, Outbred Strains; D001007:Anxiety / Q000235:genetics*; D001483:Base Sequence; D002874:Chromosome Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D005816:Genetic Complementation Test; D051379:Mice; D008815:Mice, Inbred Strains; D009030:Mosaicism; D019655:Quantitative Trait, Heritable; D020710:RGS Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*
D020710:RGS Proteins; C105345:Rgs2 protein, mouse