Rats go genomic 英文参考文献.docVIP

Meeting report Rats go genomic Bart MG Smits and Edwin Cuppen Address: Functional Genomics Group, Hubrecht Laboratory, Uppsalalaan 8, 3584 CT Utrecht, The Netherlands. Correspondence: Edwin Cuppen. Email: ecuppen@niob.knaw.nl Published: 17 February 2006 Genome Biology 2006, 7:306 (doi:10.1186/gb-2006-7-2-306) The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at /2006/7/2/306 ? 2006 BioMed Central Ltd according to Tim Aitman (Imperial College, London, UK). A report on the meeting ‘Rat Genomics and Models’, Cold Spring Harbor, USA, 8-11 December 2005. He presented a combination of genome-wide microarray expression analysis and the identification of expression QTLs (eQTLs), genomic regions that are associated with a significant change in the expression of a specific gene, in a panel of phenotypically characterized rat recombinant inbred strains. This systematic approach resulted in the mapping of many novel cis- and trans-regulatory control elements. A study of the cis-regulated gene expression of the most highly linked eQTLs revealed attractive candidate genes for previously mapped QTLs for metabolic and cardio- vascular disease phenotypes. The trans-regulatory eQTL dataset is more likely to reveal a complex network of tran- scriptional regulation. The rat genomics research field is developing and maturing fast. Undoubtedly, the mouse has played an important role in this process as the rat’s ‘big’ sibling from whom a lot has been learned. Indeed, as witnessed by contributions to a recent meeting on rat genomics at Cold Spring Harbor, tech- nologies that have been developed for the mouse over the past decade are being rapidly transferred to the rat, and the collection of bioinformatics tools and biological resources is growing fast. At the same time the rat is distinguishing itself by providing valuable unique data. Kn