title: Causes and consequences of chromatin variation between inbred mice.
abstract: Variation at regulatory elements, identified through hypersensitivity to digestion by DNase I, is believed to contribute to variation in complex traits, but the extent and consequences of this variation are poorly characterized. Analysis of terminally differentiated erythroblasts in eight inbred strains of mice identified reproducible variation at approximately 6% of DNase I hypersensitive sites (DHS). Only 30% of such variable DHS contain a sequence variant predictive of site variation. Nevertheless, sequence variants within variable DHS are more likely to be associated with complex traits than those in non-variant DHS, and variants associated with complex traits preferentially occur in variable DHS. Changes at a small proportion (less than 10%) of variable DHS are associated with changes in nearby transcriptional activity. Our results show that whilst DNA sequence variation is not the major determinant of variation in open chromatin, where such variants exist they are likely to be causal for complex traits.
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: Mona
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hosseini
authors.forename: Leo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Goodstadt
authors.forename: Jim R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Hughes
authors.forename: Monika S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Kowalczyk
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: de Gobbi
authors.forename: Georg W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Otto
authors.forename: Richard R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Copley
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mott
authors.forename: Douglas R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Higgs
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Flint
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002843:Chromatin / Q000235:genetics*; D003850:Deoxyribonuclease I / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D051379:Mice; D010641:Phenotype; D012045:Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D002843:Chromatin; D003850:Deoxyribonuclease I