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Genetic background effects in quantitative genetics: gene-by-system interactions

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Abstract

Proper cell function depends on networks of proteins that interact physically and functionally to carry out physiological processes. Thus, it seems logical that the impact of sequence variation in one protein could be significantly influenced by genetic variants at other loci in a genome. Nonetheless, the importance of such genetic interactions, known as epistasis, in explaining phenotypic variation remains a matter of debate in genetics. Recent work from our lab revealed that genes implicated from an association study of toxin tolerance in Saccharomyces cerevisiae show extensive interactions with the genetic background: most implicated genes, regardless of allele, are important for toxin tolerance in only one of two tested strains. The prevalence of background effects in our study adds to other reports of widespread genetic-background interactions in model organisms. We suggest that these effects represent many-way interactions with myriad features of the cellular system that vary across classes of individuals. Such gene-by-system interactions may influence diverse traits and require new modeling approaches to accurately represent genotype–phenotype relationships across individuals.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Bret Payseur for useful comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by a grant from the Department of Energy to the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (DE-SC0018409).

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  1. Maria Sardi

    Present address: Cargill, Incorporated, Minneapolis, MN, 55440, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Maria Sardi & Audrey P. Gasch

  2. Laboratory of Genetics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Audrey P. Gasch

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  1. Maria Sardi
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  2. Audrey P. Gasch
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Correspondence to Audrey P. Gasch.

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Communicated by M. Kupiec.

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Sardi, M., Gasch, A.P. Genetic background effects in quantitative genetics: gene-by-system interactions. Curr Genet 64, 1173–1176 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00294-018-0835-7

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