Post by Andreas Brown

In the past decades, forward genetics approaches have been successfully used to identify chromosomal loci and even genes that are linked to biological processes and diseases. By correlating phenotypical data with natural occurring single nucleotide polymorphism, the likelihood ratio statistic (LRS) can be calculated, making it possible to map phenotypes to specific regions of the genome. Hence, so called quantitative trait loci (QTL) can be identified that are causative for the distinct phenotype. Shown in the picture below is a QTL analysis which links a biological process to the distal part of mouse chromosome 14.