A quantitative genetic approach towards volatile anesthetic mechanisms in C-elegans

Quantitative genetics is the study of the heritability of continuous traits such as height or IQ. Quantitative trait loci (QTLs) represent the genes t hat are responsible for these quantitative traits. Sensitivity to the volat ile anesthetic halothane is a genetically controlled quantitative trait in the nematode C. elegans. The QTLs that are responsible for the 12-fold rang e in halothane EC50 in these strains map to a few places with at least one major effect locus on chromosome V. Congenic strains for chromosome V confi rmed these loci and offer the means to finely map them for positional cloni ng. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.