Identification of positional candidate genes for body weight and adiposity in subcongenic mice.
We previously constructed a congenic mouse, B6.S-D2Mit194-D2Mit311 (B6.S-2) with 27 Mb of SPRET/Ei donor DNA on distal chromosome 2 in a C57BL/6J background that captured an obesity quantitative trait locus (QTL). Mice homozygous for SPRET/Ei alleles at the donor region had decreased body weight and obesity-related phenotypes (Diament AL, Farahani P, Chiu S, Fisler J, Warden CH. Mamm Genome 15: 452-459, 2004). In this study, we constructed five overlapping subcongenics with smaller SPRET/Ei donor regions to fine map the underlying gene(s). One of the five subcongenic lines derived from the B6.S-2 founding congenic, B6.S-2A, captured the body weight and adiposity phenotypes in a donor region with a maximum size of 7.4 Mb. Homozygous SPRET/Ei donor alleles in both the founding congenic and the derived B6.S-2A subcongenic exhibited significant decreases in body weight, multiple fat pad weights, and adiposity index (total fat pad weight divided by body weight). Interval-specific microarray analysis in four tissues for donor region genes from the founding B6.S-2 congenic identified several differentially expressed genes mapping to the B6.S-2A subcongenic donor region, including prohormone convertase 2 (PC2; gene name: Pcsk2). Quantitative real-time PCR confirmed a modest decrease of PC2 expression in brains of mice homozygous for SPRET/Ei donor alleles. Analysis of the relative levels of mRNA for B6 and SPRET/Ei in heterozygous congenic mice showed differentially higher expression of the C57BL/6J allele over the SPRET/Ei allele, indicating a cis regulation of differential expression. Using subcongenic mapping, we successfully narrowed a body weight and obesity QTL interval and identified PC2 as a positional candidate gene.
Chiu
Sally
S
Rowe Program in Genetics, University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA.
Kim
Kyoungmi
K
Haus
Kari A
KA
Espinal
Glenda M
GM
Millon
Lee V
LV
Warden
Craig H
CH
D000273:Adipose Tissue / Q000378:metabolism*; D000483:Alleles; D000818:Animals; D001835:Body Weight; D002875:Chromosomes / Q000648:ultrastructure; D005821:Genetic Techniques; D005838:Genotype; D006579:Heterozygote; D006720:Homozygote; D051379:Mice; D020297:Mice, Congenic; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D009765:Obesity; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D040641:Quantitative Trait Loci