title: Inheritance beyond plain heritability: variance-controlling genes in Arabidopsis thaliana.
abstract: The phenotypic effect of a gene is normally described by the mean-difference between alternative genotypes. A gene may, however, also influence the phenotype by causing a difference in variance between genotypes. Here, we reanalyze a publicly available Arabidopsis thaliana dataset [1] and show that genetic variance heterogeneity appears to be as common as normal additive effects on a genomewide scale. The study also develops theory to estimate the contributions of variance differences between genotypes to the phenotypic variance, and this is used to show that individual loci can explain more than 20% of the phenotypic variance. Two well-studied systems, cellular control of molybdenum level by the ion-transporter MOT1 and flowering-time regulation by the FRI-FLC expression network, and a novel association for Leaf serration are used to illustrate the contribution of major individual loci, expression pathways, and gene-by-environment interactions to the genetic variance heterogeneity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
authors.forename: Xia
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Mats
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pettersson
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Rönnegård
authors.forename: Örjan
authors.initials: Ö
authors.lastname: Carlborg
mesh_terms: D027321:Anion Transport Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D001483:Base Sequence; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D035264:Flowers / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D017343:Genes, Plant; D056726:Genetic Association Studies; D056426:Genetic Loci; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005838:Genotype; D026161:MADS Domain Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D008982:Molybdenum / Q000378:metabolism; D010641:Phenotype; D018515:Plant Leaves / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D019655:Quantitative Trait, Heritable; D049490:Systems Biology
chemical_list: D027321:Anion Transport Proteins; D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins; C418902:At5g10140 protein, Arabidopsis; C414613:FRI protein, Arabidopsis; D026161:MADS Domain Proteins; C525371:MOT1 protein, Arabidopsis; D008982:Molybdenum