Quantitative trait loci for body weight, blood pressure, blood glucose, and serum lipids: linkage analysis with wild rats (Rattus norvegicus).

To study polygenetically inherited human diseases like hypertension, inbred rat strains are usually the preferred models. Because many inbred generations under optimized environmental conditions may have led to the survival of "silent" disease genes, we used a cross between one wild rat and genetically hypertensive SHR rats to analyze quantitative trait loci (QTLs) of blood pressure and related traits. The (Wild x SHR)F1 hybrids were transferred into a pathogen-free environment by wet-hysterectomy and were backcrossed onto SHR to generate first backcross hybrids (BC1). Progeny from one F1 female (n = 72) were phenotypically and genetically characterized to map QTLs. Significant, subsignificant, and suggestive evidence was found for more sex-specific than common linkage of blood pressure and most blood-pressure-related traits. Male- and female-specific regions were determined on different chromosomes for blood pressures (Chrs. 2 and 7 vs 5 and 11), body weight (Chrs. 10 vs 18), and blood glucose (Chr. 17 vs 20). A linkage in both males and females was shown for serum triglycerides on chromosomes 6 and 17, respectively, and blood glucose on chromosome 15. For serum total cholesterol, a significant linkage was found on chromosome 14 only in males. Our findings not only indicate the complex character of quantitative traits per se but also show impressively their dependence on sex, age, and strains in cosegregation analysis. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.