Department of Biology, Monmouth University, West Long Branch, New Jersey, United States of America.
Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States of America.
PLoS Genet. 2018 Sep 24;14(9):e1007672. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1007672. eCollection 2018 Sep.
House mice (Mus musculus) arrived in the Americas only recently in association with European colonization (~400-600 generations), but have spread rapidly and show evidence of local adaptation. Here, we take advantage of this genetic model system to investigate the genomic basis of environmental adaptation in house mice. First, we documented clinal patterns of phenotypic variation in 50 wild-caught mice from a latitudinal transect in Eastern North America. Next, we found that progeny of mice from different latitudes, raised in a common laboratory environment, displayed differences in a number of complex traits related to fitness. Consistent with Bergmann's rule, mice from higher latitudes were larger and fatter than mice from lower latitudes. They also built bigger nests and differed in aspects of blood chemistry related to metabolism. Then, combining exomic, genomic, and transcriptomic data, we identified specific candidate genes underlying adaptive variation. In particular, we defined a short list of genes with cis-eQTL that were identified as candidates in exomic and genomic analyses, all of which have known ties to phenotypes that vary among the studied populations. Thus, wild mice and the newly developed strains represent a valuable resource for future study of the links between genetic variation, phenotypic variation, and climate.
家鼠（Mus musculus）于近期随着欧洲殖民活动而抵达美洲（约 400-600 代），但其已迅速扩散并表现出明显的局部适应性。在此，我们利用这种遗传模式系统来研究家鼠环境适应性的基因组基础。首先，我们记录了来自北美洲东部纬度梯度上的 50 只野生捕获鼠的表型变异的渐变模式。其次，我们发现，来自不同纬度的老鼠的后代在许多与适应性相关的复杂特征上存在差异，这些特征与适应度有关。与伯格曼法则一致，来自高纬度地区的老鼠比来自低纬度地区的老鼠更大、更胖。它们还建造了更大的巢穴，并且在与代谢有关的血液化学方面存在差异。然后，我们结合外显子组、基因组和转录组数据，确定了适应性变异的特定候选基因。特别是，我们确定了一组具有 cis-eQTL 的候选基因，这些基因在外显子组和基因组分析中被确定为候选基因，所有这些基因都与研究群体中存在差异的表型有已知联系。因此，野生鼠和新开发的品系代表了未来研究遗传变异、表型变异和气候之间联系的宝贵资源。
