Pleiotropic patterns of quantitative trait loci for 70 murine skeletal traits.

Quantitative trait locus (QTL) studies of a skeletal trait or a few related skeletal components are becoming commonplace, but as yet there has been no investigation of pleiotropic patterns throughout the skeleton. We present a comprehensive survey of pleiotropic patterns affecting mouse skeletal morphology in an intercross of LG/J and SM/J inbred strains (N = 1040), using QTL analysis on 70 skeletal traits. We identify 798 single-trait QTL, coalescing to 105 loci that affect on average 7-8 traits each.