Abstract
DDD.Cg-Ay female mice developed massive obesity as compared with B6.Cg-Ay female mice. We previously identified quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for obesity on chromosomes 1, 6, 9 and 17 in F2 female mice, including F2Ay (F2 mice with the Ay allele) and F2 non- Ay mice (F2 mice without the Ay allele), produced by crossing C57BL/6J and DDD.Cg-Ay strains. We here addressed the question whether the obesity QTLs share genetic bases with putative QTLs for plasma glucose, insulin and leptin concentrations. We performed QTL analyses for the first principal component (PC1) extracted from these metabolic measurements to identify the genes that contributed to the comprehensive evaluation of metabolic traits. By single QTL scans, we identified two significant QTLs for insulin concentration on chromosomes 6 and 12, three for leptin concentration on chromosomes 1, 6 and 17, and five for PC1 on chromosomes 1, 6, 12 (two loci) and 17. Although insulin and leptin concentrations and PC1 were not normally distributed in combined F2 mice, results of single QTL scans by parametric and non-parametric methods were very similar. Therefore, QTL scan by the parametric method was performed with the agouti locus genotype as a covariate. A significant QTL × covariate interaction was found for PC1 on chromosome 9. All obesity QTLs had significant metabolic effects. Thus, obesity- and diabetes-related traits in DDD.Cg-Ay mice were largely controlled by QTLs on chromosomes 1, 6, 9, 12 and 17.
