A comprehensive and comparative phenotypic analysis of the collaborative founder strains identifies new and known phenotypes
Mouse Phenome Database Team, Heike Kollmus, Helmut Fuchs, Christoph Lengger, Hamed Haselimashhadi, Molly A. Bogue, Manuela A. Östereicher, Marion Horsch, Thure Adler, Juan Antonio Aguilar‐Pimentel, Oana V. Amarie, Lore Becker, Johannes Beckers, Julia Calzada‐Wack, Lillian Garrett, Wolfgang Hans, Sabine M. Hölter, Tanja Klein‐Rodewald, Holger Maier, Philipp Mayer‐Kuckuk, Gregor Miller, Kristin Moreth, Frauke Neff, Birgit Rathkolb, Ildikó Rácz, Jan Rozman, Nadine Spielmann, Irina Treise, Dirk H. Busch, Jochen Graw, Thomas Klopstock, Eckhard Wolf, Wolfgang Wurst, Ali Önder Yildirim, Jeremy Mason, Arturo Torres Ortiz, Rudi Balling, Terry Mehaan, Valérie Gailus‐Durner, Klaus Schughart, Martin Hrabě de Angelis
Abstract
The collaborative cross (CC) is a large panel of mouse-inbred lines derived from eight founder strains (NOD/ShiLtJ, NZO/HILtJ, A/J, C57BL/6J, 129S1/SvImJ, CAST/EiJ, PWK/PhJ, and WSB/EiJ). Here, we performed a comprehensive and comparative phenotyping screening to identify phenotypic differences and similarities between the eight founder strains. In total, more than 300 parameters including allergy, behavior, cardiovascular, clinical blood chemistry, dysmorphology, bone and cartilage, energy metabolism, eye and vision, immunology, lung function, neurology, nociception, and pathology were analyzed; in most traits from sixteen females and sixteen males. We identified over 270 parameters that were significantly different between strains. This study highlights the value of the founder and CC strains for phenotype-genotype associations of many genetic traits that are highly relevant to human diseases. All data described here are publicly available from the mouse phenome database for analyses and downloads.