RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Genetic interactions contribute less than additive effects to quantitative trait variation in yeast
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 019513
DO 10.1101/019513
A1 Joshua S. Bloom
A1 Iulia Kotenko
A1 Meru J. Sadhu
A1 Sebastian Treusch
A1 Frank W. Albert
A1 Leonid Kruglyak
YR 2015
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/10/08/019513.abstract
AB Genetic mapping studies of quantitative traits typically focus on detecting loci that contribute additively to trait variation. Genetic interactions are often proposed as a contributing factor to trait variation, but the relative contribution of interactions to trait variation is a subject of debate. Here, we use a very large cross between two yeast strains to accurately estimate the fraction of phenotypic variance due to pairwise QTL-QTL interactions for 20 quantitative traits. We find that this fraction is 9% on average, substantially less than the contribution of additive QTL (43%). Statistically significant QTL-QTL pairs typically have small individual effect sizes, but collectively explain 40% of the pairwise interaction variance. We show that pairwise interaction variance is largely explained by pairs of loci at least one of which has a significant additive effect. These results refine our understanding of the genetic architecture of quantitative traits and help guide future mapping studies.