Rats are a major model for studying complex disease mechanisms, behavioral phenotypes, environmental factors, and for drug development and discovery. Inbred rat strains control for genetic background and allow for… Click to show full abstract
Rats are a major model for studying complex disease mechanisms, behavioral phenotypes, environmental factors, and for drug development and discovery. Inbred rat strains control for genetic background and allow for repeated, reproducible molecular, cellular, and whole animal phenotyping. Genetic susceptibility to disease, sensitivity to environmental elements, and pharmacogenomics are critical components of the concepts of precision medicine. The Hybrid Rat Diversity Program (HRDP) is a renewable rat resource that combines the power of genetic stability through inbred strains, power for genomic mapping strategies through genetic diversity and recombinant inbred strains, and strength in an animal model that mirrors many human disease traits. The HRDP was designed to include 96 inbred rat strains with genomic and physiological diversity to maximize power to detect specific genetic loci associated with complex traits while maximizing the genetic diversity among strains. The 96-strain panel consists of 33 genetically diverse inbred strains and two panels of recombinant inbred panels: FEXL/LEXF (33 strains, Japan) and HXB/BXH (30 strains, Czech Republic). Currently, 85% of the classic inbred and 68% of the RI strains are available for experiments. Whole genome sequencing of 89 unique strains have been sequenced. Strain specific variants are available at the Rat Genome Database through the HRPD Portal, the strain pages, and genomic tools. RNA sequencing of kidney, thymus, and muscle for the classic inbred strains are underway. The HRDP will provide a genetically stable population of rat strains with fully sequenced genomes, transcriptomes for brain and liver, and general phenotypic characterization to be used for systems genetic studies and fine mapping of complex traits. National Institutes of Health, Office of the Director, R24OD024617 This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.
               
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