eQTL Analysis in Mice and Rats

Since the introduction of genetical genomics in 2001, many studies have been published on various organisms, including mouse and rat. Genetical genomics makes use of the latest microarray profiling technologies and combines vast amounts of genotype and gene expression information, a strategy that has proven very successful in inbred line crosses. The data are analyzed using standard tools for linkage analysis to map the genetic determinants of gene expression variation. Typically, studies have singled out hundreds of genomic loci regulating the expression of nearby and distant genes (called local and distant expression quantitative trait loci, respectively; eQTLs). In this chapter, we provide a step-by-step guide to performing genome-wide linkage analysis in an eQTL mapping experiment by using the R statistical software framework.