Great progress has been made in genetic dissection of quantitative trait variation during the past two decades, but many studies still reveal only a small fraction of quantitative trait loci (QTLs), and epistasis remains elusive. We integrate contemporary knowledge of signal transduction pathways with principles of quantitative and population genetics to characterize genetic networks underlying...

background: indigenous chickens could serve as precious genetic resources that should be considered in conservation and breeding programs. the major histocompatibility complex (mhc) has a strong association to disease resistance/susceptibility, production and reproduction traits in chicken. therefore, identifying its polymorphism in populations under selective breeding could be used for selecti...

It is believed that epistatic interactions among loci contribute to variations in quantitative traits. Several methods are available to detect epistasis using population-based data. However, methods to characterize epistasis for quantitative traits in family-based association analysis are not well developed, especially for studying thousands of gene expression traits. Here, we proposed a linear...

the purpose of this study was to identify genomic regions of quantitative trait loci (qtl), affectingcarcass traits on chromosome 1 in an f2 population of japanese quail. for this purpose, a three-generationresource population was developed by using two distinct japanese quail strains, wild (meat type) andwhite (layer type). eight pairs of white and wild birds were crossed reciprocally and 34 f...

Quantitative trait locus (QTL) studies of a skeletal trait or a few related skeletal components are becoming commonplace, but as yet there has been no investigation of pleiotropic patterns throughout the skeleton. We present a comprehensive survey of pleiotropic patterns affecting mouse skeletal morphology in an intercross of LG/J and SM/J inbred strains (N = 1040), using QTL analysis on 70 ske...

The spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) is a widely used rodent model of hypertension and metabolic syndrome. Previously we identified thousands of cis-regulated expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) across multiple tissues using a panel of rat recombinant inbred (RI) strains derived from Brown Norway and SHR progenitors. These cis-eQTLs represent potential susceptibility loci underlying ...

BACKGROUND: Among the environmental stresses soil salinity is a widespread environmental problem that has been found to affect more than 77 million hectares or 5% of the cultivable land of the universe. Potassium has a positive role in plant growth under saline conditions, because this element plays an essential role in photosynthesis, osmo regulatory adaptations of plant to wa...

Phragmites australis is the dominant and constructive species among plant communities in the wetlands of the downstream of Yellow River, China. Its morphological characters were high variable in different habitats. Studies on Morphological and RAPD variation of 15 P. australis populations from this region showed that soil salinity was the dominant ecological factor that affected the morphologic...