Project description:A LINE-1 element, LIC105, was found in the Mus musculus domesticus inbred strain, C57BL/6J. Upon sequencing, this element was found to belong to a M. spretus LINE-1 subfamily originating within the last 0.2 million years. This is the second spretus-specific LINE-1 subfamily found to be represented in C57BL/6J. Although it is unclear how these M. spretus LINE-1s transferred from M. spretus to M. m. domesticus, it is now clear that at least two different spretus LINE-1 sequences have recently transferred. The limited divergence between the C57BL/6J spretus-like LINE-1s and their closest spretus ancestors suggests that the transfer did not involve an exceptionally long lineage of sequential transpositions.
Project description:BACKGROUND: Due to their high level of genotypic and phenotypic variability, Mus spretus strains were introduced in laboratories to investigate the genetic determinism of complex phenotypes including quantitative trait loci. Mus spretus diverged from Mus musculus around 2.5 million years ago and exhibits on average a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in every 100 base pairs when compared with any of the classical laboratory strains. A genoproteomic approach was used to assess polymorphism of the major milk proteins between SEG/Pas and C57BL/6J, two inbred strains of mice representative of Mus spretus and Mus musculus species, respectively. RESULTS: The milk protein concentration was dramatically reduced in the SEG/Pas strain by comparison with the C57BL/6J strain (34 ± 9 g/L vs. 125 ± 12 g/L, respectively). Nine major proteins were identified in both milks using RP-HPLC, bi-dimensional electrophoresis and MALDI-Tof mass spectrometry. Two caseins (? and ?s1) and the whey acidic protein (WAP), showed distinct chromatographic and electrophoresis behaviours. These differences were partly explained by the occurrence of amino acid substitutions and splicing variants revealed by cDNA sequencing. A total of 34 SNPs were identified in the coding and 3'untranslated regions of the SEG/Pas Csn1s1 (11), Csn2 (7) and Wap (8) genes. In addition, a 3 nucleotide deletion leading to the loss of a serine residue at position 93 was found in the SEG/Pas Wap gene. CONCLUSION: SNP frequencies found in three milk protein-encoding genes between Mus spretus and Mus musculus is twice the values previously reported at the whole genome level. However, the protein structure and post-translational modifications seem not to be affected by SNPs characterized in our study. Splicing mechanisms (cryptic splice site usage, exon skipping, error-prone junction sequence), already identified in casein genes from other species, likely explain the existence of multiple ?s1-casein isoforms both in SEG/Pas and C57BL/6J strains. Finally, we propose a possible mechanism by which the hallmark tandem duplication of a 18-nt exon (14 copies) may have occurred in the mouse genome.
Project description:The genome of classical laboratory strains of mice is an artificial mosaic of genomes originated from several mouse subspecies with predominant representation (>90%) of the Mus m. domesticus component. Mice of another subspecies, East European/Asian Mus m. musculus, can interbreed with the classical laboratory strains to generate hybrids with unprecedented phenotypic and genotypic variations. To study these variations in depth we prepared the first genomic large insert BAC library from an inbred strain derived purely from the Mus m. musculus-subspecies. The library will be used to seek and characterize genomic sequences controlling specific monogenic and polygenic complex traits, including modifiers of dominant and recessive mutations.A representative mouse genomic BAC library was derived from a female mouse of the PWD/Ph inbred strain of Mus m. musculus subspecies. The library consists of 144,768 primary clones from which 97% contain an insert of 120 kb average size. The library represents an equivalent of 6.7 x mouse haploid genome, as estimated from the total number of clones carrying genomic DNA inserts and from the average insert size. The clones were arrayed in duplicates onto eight high-density membranes that were screened with seven single-copy gene probes. The individual probes identified four to eleven positive clones, corresponding to 6.9-fold coverage of the mouse genome. Eighty-seven BAC-ends of PWD/Ph clones were sequenced, edited, and aligned with mouse C57BL/6J (B6) genome. Seventy-three BAC-ends displayed unique hits on B6 genome and their alignment revealed 0.92 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) per 100 bp. Insertions and deletions represented 0.3% of the BAC end sequences.Analysis of the novel genomic library for the PWD/Ph inbred strain demonstrated coverage of almost seven mouse genome equivalents and a capability to recover clones for specific regions of PWD/Ph genome. The single nucleotide polymorphism between the strains PWD/Ph and C57BL/6J was 0.92/100 bp, a value significantly higher than between classical laboratory strains. The library will serve as a resource for dissecting the phenotypic and genotypic variations between mice of the Mus m. musculus subspecies and classical laboratory mouse strains.
Project description:Consomic (chromosome substitution) strains (CSs) represent the most recent addition to the mouse genetic resources aimed to genetically analyze complex trait loci (QTLs). In this study, we report the development of a set of 28 mouse intersubspecific CSs. In each CS, we replaced a single chromosome of the C57BL/6J (B6) inbred strain (mostly Mus m. domesticus) with its homolog from the PWD/Ph inbred strain of the Mus m. musculus subspecies. These two progenitor subspecies diverged less than 1 million years ago and accumulated a large number of genetic differences that constitute a rich resource of genetic variation for QTL analyses. Altogether, the 18 consomic, nine subconsomic, and one conplastic strain covered all 19 autosomes, X and Y sex chromosomes, and mitochondrial DNA. Most CSs had significantly lower reproductive fitness compared with the progenitor strains. CSs homosomic for chromosomes 10 and 11, and the C57BL/6J-Chr X males, failed to reproduce and were substituted by less affected subconsomics carrying either a proximal, central, or distal part of the respective chromosome. A genome-wide scan of 965 DNA markers revealed 99.87% purity of the B6 genetic background. Thirty-three nonsynonymous substitutions were uncovered in the protein-coding regions of the mitochondrial DNA of the B6.PWD-mt conplastic strain. A pilot-phenotyping experiment project revealed a high number of variations among B6.PWD consomics.
Project description:BACKGROUND: Mus spretus diverged from Mus musculus over one million years ago. These mice are genetically and phenotypically divergent. Despite the value of utilizing M. musculus and M. spretus for quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping, relatively little genomic information on M. spretus exists, and most of the available sequence and polymorphic data is for one strain of M. spretus, Spret/Ei. In previous work, we mapped fifteen loci for skin cancer susceptibility using four different M. spretus by M. musculus F1 backcrosses. One locus, skin tumor susceptibility 5 (Skts5) on chromosome 12, shows strong linkage in one cross. RESULTS: To identify potential candidate genes for Skts5, we sequenced 65 named and unnamed genes and coding elements mapping to the peak linkage area in outbred spretus, Spret/EiJ, FVB/NJ, and NIH/Ola. We identified polymorphisms in 62 of 65 genes including 122 amino acid substitutions. To look for polymorphisms consistent with the linkage data, we sequenced exons with amino acid polymorphisms in two additional M. spretus strains and one additional M. musculus strain generating 40.1 kb of sequence data. Eight candidate variants were identified that fit with the linkage data. To determine the degree of variation across M. spretus, we conducted phylogenetic analyses. The relatedness of the M. spretus strains at this locus is consistent with the proximity of region of ascertainment of the ancestral mice. CONCLUSION: Our analyses suggest that, if Skts5 on chromosome 12 is representative of other regions in the genome, then published genomic data for Spret/EiJ are likely to be of high utility for genomic studies in other M. spretus strains.
Project description:MSM/Ms is an inbred strain derived from the Japanese wild mouse, Mus musculus molossinus. It is believed that subspecies molossinus has contributed substantially to the genome constitution of common laboratory strains of mice, although the majority of their genome is derived from the west European M. m. domesticus. Information on the molossinus genome is thus essential not only for genetic studies involving molossinus but also for characterization of common laboratory strains. Here, we report the construction of an arrayed bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) library from male MSM/Ms genomic DNA, covering approximately 1x genome equivalent. Both ends of 176,256 BAC clone inserts were sequenced, and 62,988 BAC-end sequence (BES) pairs were mapped onto the C57BL/6J genome (NCBI mouse Build 30), covering 2,228,164 kbp or 89% of the total genome. Taking advantage of the BES map data, we established a computer-based clone screening system. Comparison of the MSM/Ms and C57BL/6J sequences revealed 489,200 candidate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 51,137,941 bp sequenced. The overall nucleotide substitution rate was as high as 0.0096. The distribution of SNPs along the C57BL/6J genome was not uniform: The majority of the genome showed a high SNP rate, and only 5.2% of the genome showed an extremely low SNP rate (percentage identity = 0.9997); these sequences are likely derived from the molossinus genome.
Project description:Rodent herpesviruses such as murine cytomegalovirus (host, Mus musculus), rat cytomegalovirus (host, Rattus norvegicus), and murine gammaherpesvirus 68 (hosts, Apodemus species) are important tools for the experimental study of human herpesvirus diseases. However, alphaherpesviruses, roseoloviruses, and lymphocryptoviruses, as well as rhadinoviruses, that naturally infect Mus musculus (house mouse) and other Old World mice are unknown. To identify hitherto-unknown rodent-associated herpesviruses, we captured M. musculus, R. norvegicus, and 14 other rodent species in several locations in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Thailand. Samples of trigeminal ganglia, dorsal root ganglia, brains, spleens, and other organs, as well as blood, were analyzed with a degenerate panherpesvirus PCR targeting the DNA polymerase (DPOL) gene. Herpesvirus-positive samples were subjected to a second degenerate PCR targeting the glycoprotein B (gB) gene. The sequences located between the partial DPOL and gB sequences were amplified by long-distance PCR and sequenced, resulting in a contiguous sequence of approximately 3.5 kbp. By DPOL PCR, we detected 17 novel betaherpesviruses and 21 novel gammaherpesviruses but no alphaherpesvirus. Of these 38 novel herpesviruses, 14 were successfully analyzed by the complete bigenic approach. Most importantly, the first gammaherpesvirus of Mus musculus was discovered (Mus musculus rhadinovirus 1 [MmusRHV1]). This virus is a member of a novel group of rodent gammaherpesviruses, which is clearly distinct from murine herpesvirus 68-like rodent gammaherpesviruses. Multigenic phylogenetic analysis, using an 8-kbp locus, revealed that MmusRHV1 diverged from the other gammaherpesviruses soon after the evolutionary separation of Epstein-Barr virus-like lymphocryptoviruses from human herpesvirus 8-like rhadinoviruses and alcelaphine herpesvirus 1-like macaviruses.
Project description:The mammalian vomeronasal organ (VNO) expresses two G-protein coupled receptor gene families that mediate pheromone responses, the V1R and V2R receptor genes. In rodents, there are ~150 V1R genes comprising 12 subfamilies organized in gene clusters at multiple chromosomal locations. Previously, we showed that several of these subfamilies had been extensively modulated by gene duplications, deletions, and gene conversions around the time of the evolutionary split of the mouse and rat lineages, consistent with the hypothesis that V1R repertoires might be involved in reinforcing speciation events. Here, we generated genome sequence for one large cluster containing two V1R subfamilies in Mus spretus, a closely related and sympatric species to Mus musculus, and investigated evolutionary change in these repertoires along the two mouse lineages.We describe a comparison of spretus and musculus with respect to genome organization and synteny, as well as V1R gene content and phylogeny, with reference to previous observations made between mouse and rat. Unlike the mouse-rat comparisons, synteny seems to be largely conserved between the two mouse species. Disruption of local synteny is generally associated with differences in repeat content, although these differences appear to arise more from deletion than new integrations. Even though unambiguous V1R orthology is evident, we observe dynamic modulation of the functional repertoires, with two of seven V1Rb and one of eleven V1Ra genes lost in spretus, two V1Ra genes becoming pseudogenes in musculus, two additional orthologous pairs apparently subject to strong adaptive selection, and another divergent orthologous pair that apparently was subjected to gene conversion.Therefore, eight of the 18 (~44%) presumptive V1Ra/V1Rb genes in the musculus-spretus ancestor appear to have undergone functional modulation since these two species diverged. As compared to the rat-mouse split, where modulation is evident by independent expansions of these two V1R subfamilies, divergence between musculus and spretus has arisen more by mutations within coding sequences. These results support the hypothesis that adaptive changes in functional V1R repertoires contribute to the delineation of very closely related species.
Project description:Rodent betaherpesviruses vary considerably in genomic content, and these variations can result in a distinct pathogenicity. Therefore, the identification of unknown betaherpesviruses in house mice (Mus musculus), the most important rodent host species in basic research, is of importance. During a search for novel herpesviruses in house mice using herpesvirus consensus PCR and attempts to isolate viruses in tissue culture, we identified a previously unknown betaherpesvirus. The primary PCR search in mouse organs revealed the presence of known strains of murine cytomegalovirus (Murid herpesvirus 1) and of Mus musculus rhadinovirus 1 only. However, the novel virus was detected after incubation of organ pieces in fibroblast tissue culture and subsequent PCR analysis of the supernatants. Long-distance PCR amplification including the DNA polymerase and glycoprotein B genes revealed a 3.4 kb sequence that was similar to sequences of rodent cytomegaloviruses. Pairwise sequence comparisons and phylogenetic analyses showed that this newly identified murine virus is most similar to the English isolate of rat cytomegalovirus, thereby raising the possibility that two distinct CMV lineages have evolved in both Mus musculus and Rattus norvegicus.
Project description:This experiment is one of a series of experiments on interspecific recombinant congenic strain (IRCS) mice that aimed to identify novel genes involved in male or female hyporfertility by comparing characteristics of the sperm, number of offspring, quality of implantation etc. in C57B6/J and IRCS mice. <br>The goal of this experiment was to understand the basis of female hypofertility/embryonic resorption in a mouse model of congenic strains. The IRCS strain used in this experiment is the 66H Ch13 mouse. This strain was derived by introgression of a ~6 Mb fragment of mus spretus origin inside the genome of Mus musculus (C57B6/J) (L'hôte et al, Bioessays, 2010. PMID:20091755 ) Previous ultrasonographic analysis of this line revealed an increased rate of embryonic resorption compared to the C57B6/J parent (Laissue et al, Int. J . Dev. Biol, 2009 PMID: 19488966 ). <br>In this experiment we measured gene expression in the tissues that are relevant for implantation and early development, i.e. the uterus and the placenta, in C57B6/J and 66H Chr13 mice at 12 days post-coïtus with C57B6/J males. Pools of RNA from four mice per sample were obtained and analysed using a Nimblegen mouse expression array.