Sex-exclusive quantitative trait loci influences in alcohol-related phenotypes

During the past half century, researchers have identified and examined sex differences in alcohol-related phenotypes, focusing more recently on unders tanding of the mechanisms underlying these differences. In general, the gen etic contributions influencing these differences are not consistent with an interpretation of sex linkage and must, therefore, reflect some form of se x limitation in which allelic differences at particular autosomal loci have different consequences in males and females. Significant sex differences i n measures of alcohol consumption in mice have been demonstrated in previou s work in our laboratory, To investigate these differences further, we expl ore the limiting case of sex-exclusive effects using data from (BXD) recomb inant inbred (RI) strains of mice and from an intercross derived from the s ame progenitors, C57BL/6J (B) and DBA/2J (D). By the use of two statistical approaches (examination of residual scores as a sex-exclusive phenotypic v alue for the RI strains and multivariate regression on sex and genotype in the F-2) we have identified and confirmed female-exclusive markers for alco hol acceptance on chromosomes 9 and 12 and one marker for alcohol preferenc e on chromosome 2. Am. J. Med. Genet. (Neuropsychiatr. Genet.) 88:647-652, 1999. (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.