Composite effects of polymorphisms near multiple regulatory elements create a major-effect QTL.

ABSTRACT: Many agriculturally, evolutionarily, and medically important characters vary in a quantitative fashion. Unfortunately, the genes and sequence variants accounting for this variation remain largely unknown due to a variety of biological and technical challenges. Drosophila melanogaster contains high levels of sequence variation and low linkage disequilibrium, allowing us to dissect the effects of many causative variants within a single locus. Here, we take advantage of these features to identify and characterize the sequence polymorphisms that comprise major effect QTL alleles segregating at the bric-a-brac locus. We show that natural bric-a-brac alleles with large effects on cuticular pigmentation reflect a cumulative impact of polymorphisms that affect three functional regions: a promoter,

SUBMITTER: Bickel RD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3020931 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature