How to translate text using browser tools
1 May 2009 Relative Contribution of Additive, Dominance, and Imprinting Effects to Phenotypic Variation in Body Size and Growth between Divergent Selection Lines of Mice
Reinmar Hager, James M. Cheverud, Jason B. Wolf
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

Epigenetic effects attributed to genomic imprinting are increasingly recognized as an important source of variation in quantitative traits. However, little is known about their relative contribution to phenotypic variation compared to those of additive and dominance effects, and almost nothing about their role in phenotypic evolution. Here we address these questions by investigating the relative contribution of additive, dominance, and imprinting effects of quantitative trait loci (QTL) to variation in “early” and “late” body weight in an intercross of mice selected for divergent adult body weight. We identified 18 loci on 13 chromosomes; additive effects accounted for most of the phenotypic variation throughout development, and imprinting effects were always small. Genetic effects on early weight showed more dominance, less additive, and, surprisingly, less imprinting variation than that of late weight. The predominance of additivity of QTL effects on body weight follows the expectation that additive effects account for the evolutionary divergence between selection lines. We hypothesize that the appearance of more imprinting effects on late body weight may be a consequence of divergent selection on adult body weight, which may have indirectly selected for alleles showing partial imprinting effects due to their associated additive effects, highlighting a potential role of genomic imprinting in the response to selection.

© 2009 The Society for the Study of Evolution.
Reinmar Hager, James M. Cheverud, and Jason B. Wolf "Relative Contribution of Additive, Dominance, and Imprinting Effects to Phenotypic Variation in Body Size and Growth between Divergent Selection Lines of Mice," Evolution 63(5), 1118-1128, (1 May 2009). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00638.x
Received: 6 August 2008; Accepted: 1 January 2009; Published: 1 May 2009
JOURNAL ARTICLE
11 PAGES

This article is only available to subscribers.
It is not available for individual sale.
+ SAVE TO MY LIBRARY

KEYWORDS
epigenetics
GENOMIC IMPRINTING
mice
phenotypic variation
QTL
weight
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission
Back to Top