Two linked blood pressure quantitative trait loci on chromosome 10 defined by dahl rat congenic strains.

Aquantitative trait locus (QTL) for blood pressure was previously detected on rat chromosome 10 (RNO10) by linkage analysis and confirmed by the construction of congenic strains that encompass large regions of RNO10. In the present study, the rat RNO10 blood pressure QTL was dissected by the further construction of congenic substrains. The original congenic region was shown to contain 2 blood pressure QTLs (QTL 1 and QTL 2) approximately 24 cM apart. These were localized to a <2.6-cM region between markers D10Rat27 and D10Rat24 for QTL 1 and to a <3.2-cM region between D10Rat12 and D10Mco70 for QTL 2. Comparative mapping suggests that the rat RNO10 QTL 2 could be localized very close to a blood pressure QTL described by sib-pair analysis on human chromosome 17, but this is not definitively established because of multiple and complex chromosomal rearrangements between rodents and humans.