title: Comparison of whole genome linkage scans in premenopausal and postmenopausal women: no bone-loss-specific QTLs were implicated.
abstract: This study was conducted to investigate if there exist bone-loss-specific quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for females. Genome-wide linkage scans were conducted in total, premenopausal, and postmenopausal women, respectively. No QTLs exclusively were found in postmenopausal women, suggesting that no bone-loss-specific QTL was implicated independent of BMD in our sample.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Bone mineral density (BMD) in elderly women is determined jointly by peak bone mass achieved before menopause and by subsequent bone loss upon and after menopause. Peak bone mass is under strong genetic control, but whether bone loss has genetic determination independent of peak BMD is unknown.
  
  
  METHODS
  To investigate if there exist bone-loss-specific quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for females, we conducted genome-wide linkage scans in 2,582 Caucasian females from 451 pedigrees including 1,486 premenopausal and 1,096 postmenopausal women. Linkage analyses were performed in the total sample and premenopausal and postmenopausal women subgroups, respectively, and the results were compared.
  
  
  RESULTS
  No linkage evidence was found exclusively in postmenopausal women. Linkage signals identified are largely consistent in the total, premenopausal, and postmenopausal samples. For example, for spine BMD, for the total sample, a significant linkage was obtained on 15q13 (LOD = 3.67), and LOD scores of 1.52 and 2.49 were achieved on 15q13 in premenopausal and postmenopausal women, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We did not find any QTLs exclusively in postmenopausal women; hence, no specific QTL for bone loss was implicated independent of BMD in our female sample.
authors.affiliation: The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Y-J
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Q
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.forename: R R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Recker
authors.forename: H-W
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Deng