Identification of Genetic Variants Underlying Anxiety and Multiple Sclerosis in Heterogeneous Stock Rats

Abstract

Identifying genetic variants that contribute to phenotypicvariation is expected to provide insights into the etiology of complextraits. Here we show how combining genetic mapping in an outbred population ofrats with sequence data from the progenitors of the population made it possibleto identify causal variants and genes for a large number of phenotypes. Weidentified 355 genomic loci contributing to 122 measuresrelevant to six models of disease, including fear-related behaviors andexperimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. At 35 of those loci we identified the responsible gene, and in somecases, the responsible variant.