Figure 7.

Utilization of genetics of gene expression data in order to prioritize candidate genes underlying a locus of interest. A cQTL for chow diet total cholesterol levels was previously described on chromosome 3 at 24 cM at the peak marker D3mit241 (Drake et al. 2001; Colinayo et al. 2003). Cis-acting eQTL were identified as transcripts that mapped to the cQTL peak marker or either of the markers flanking this marker with a LOD score >4.3, and physically reside within 20 cM of the peak marker. This resulted in a candidate gene list of 11 genes. The LOD score curve for cholesterol (blue) is shown in relation to those for each of 11 candidate cis eQTLs (black). GenBank accession numbers for the candidate genes are indicated in the corner of each plot.