Phelan J P, Austad S N
Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138.
J Gerontol. 1994 Jan;49(1):B1-11. doi: 10.1093/geronj/49.1.b1.
Most gerontological research is conducted using inbred strains of animals in an attempt to maximize phenotypic uniformity within experiments and thus increase the experimenter's statistical power to detect treatment effects. However, for a wide range of phenotypic traits, F1 hybrids between inbred strains are considerably less variable than the parental inbred strains themselves. Therefore, the use of F1 hybrids is preferable for many research applications. In this article, we discuss the sources of phenotypic variability and explain why F1 hybrids are often less variable than inbred strains; we review the empirical literature illustrating the large range of species and traits for which this is true; and finally we suggest how this finding suggests that F1 hybrids may often be superior animal models for studying the aging process and how to manipulate it.
大多数老年学研究使用近交系动物进行，目的是在实验中使表型一致性最大化，从而增强实验者检测治疗效果的统计效力。然而，对于广泛的表型性状而言，近交系之间的F1杂种的变异性比亲本近交系本身要小得多。因此，在许多研究应用中，使用F1杂种更为可取。在本文中，我们讨论了表型变异性的来源，并解释了为什么F1杂种的变异性通常比近交系小；我们回顾了实证文献，这些文献说明了许多物种和性状确实如此；最后，我们提出这一发现如何表明F1杂种可能常常是研究衰老过程及其调控方法的更优动物模型。
