Strain & Genotype Data Description

The SS and BN strains were chosen because of their relevance to hypertension, cardiac and vascular disorders, hyperlipidemia, renal disease and insulin resistance. The SS and BN strains are the parentals for developing the SS.BN consomics. The SS.BN consomics provide a means to validate the mapping studies, generate new genetic mapping data and most importantly will provide the community with renewable animal resources that allow rapid narrowing of genomic regions of interest and ultimate linking of genes to functional pathways of importance to the NHLBI. The FHH strain both complements and contrasts with the SS with respect to heart, lung and blood function. The FHH.BN consomics will be developed later in the program from the FHH and BN parental strains. The SPRD is an outbred rat commonly used in the scientific community. The GH Genetically Hypertensive Rat is an inbred rat that develops hypertension, cardiac hypertrophy and vascular disease. In a complete panel of consomic rats, each chromosome is replaced one at a time (strain A to strain B), so that the contribution of genes on each chromosome can be assessed by phenotyping the consomic strain for the traits of interest on an inbred background. Consomic strains overcome the confounding effects of heterogeneous genomic backgrounds in which the phenotypic noise may make the detection of weak QTLs difficult. Consomics also provide a renewable source of animals and a platform upon which subsequent genetic studies and/or physiological studies can be used to study a QTL on the chromosome.

Click here for the marker sets used in classifying strains as consomic or congenic. (Note that unless otherwise indicated, regions outside these markers have not been characterized.)

Nomenclature Links

RGD Rats Nomenclature Standards

JAX Rat Nomenclature Standards

RGD Genome Scanner