Paterson A H
Department of Soil and Crop Science, Texas A&M University, College Station 77843-2474, USA.
Genome Res. 1995 Nov;5(4):321-33. doi: 10.1101/gr.5.4.321.
QTL mapping is an increasingly useful approach to the study and manipulation of complex traits important in agriculture, evolution, and medicine. The molecular dissection of quantitative phenotypes, supplementing the principles of classical quantitative genetics, is accelerating progress in the manipulation of plant and animal genomes. A growing appreciation of the similarities among different organisms and the usefulness of comparative genetic information is making genome analysis more efficient, and providing new opportunities for using model systems to overcome the limitations of less-favorable systems. The expanding repertoire of techniques and information available for studying heredity is removing obstacles to the cloning of QTLs. Although QTL mapping alone is limited to a resolution of 0.1%-1.0% of a genome, use of QTL mapping in conjunction with a search for mapped candidate genes, with emerging technologies for isolation of genes expressed under conditions likely to account for the quantitative phenotype, and with ever more efficient megabase DNA manipulation and characterization bodes well for the prospect of isolating the genetic determinants of QTLs in the foreseeable future. In the words of Thoday (1961), "An extensive attack on quantitative genetics made from this point of view as well as the biometric approach should be a great help in answering questions concerning the nature of polygenes...."
数量性状基因座（QTL）定位是一种在农业、进化和医学领域中对重要复杂性状进行研究和调控的日益有用的方法。对数量表型进行分子剖析，补充了经典数量遗传学原理，正在加速动植物基因组调控方面的进展。人们越来越认识到不同生物之间的相似性以及比较遗传信息的有用性，这使得基因组分析更加高效，并为利用模型系统克服条件较差系统的局限性提供了新机会。用于研究遗传的技术和信息不断增加，正在消除克隆QTL的障碍。尽管单独的QTL定位仅限于基因组分辨率的0.1%-1.0%，但将QTL定位与寻找已定位的候选基因、用于分离在可能解释数量表型的条件下表达的基因的新兴技术以及日益高效的兆碱基DNA操作和表征相结合，有望在可预见的未来分离出QTL的遗传决定因素。用托迪（1961年）的话说，“从这个角度以及生物统计学方法对数量遗传学进行广泛研究，将极大地有助于回答有关多基因性质的问题……”
