New spontaneous mutation in the Wheels region
Leona H Gagnon, Sandra J. Gray, Ken R. Johnson
Source of Support: This research was supported by NIH/NCRR grant RR01183 to the Mouse Mutant Resource (M.T. Davisson, PI) and DC04301(K.R. Johnson. P.I.)
Mutation (allele) symbol: Whll
Mutation (allele) name: wheels-like
Gene symbol: Whll
Strain of Origin: C57L/J
Current strain name: B6.L-Whll/J
Stock #: 004620 (view JAX® Mice Data Sheet for additional information including Price and Supply Information)
Availability: cryopreserved and DNA
Phenotype categories: moderate circler, mild hearing impairment
Origin and Description
The dominant mutation wheels-like (Whll) arose spontaneously in the C57L/J inbred strain. Due to poor viability, male mutants were backcrossed to C57BL/6J and the strain is now maintained by mating female C57BL/6J mice to male Whll/+ mutants. ABR test results showed that heterozygous mutants have a 10 - 25 dB hearing impairment compared with +/+ littermate controls, but are not deaf.
Genetic Analysis
Mutant F1 hybrids with CAST/Ei were backcrossed to C57BL/6J mice (+/+), and 25 N2 generation animals were analyzed for linkage. The new mutation was localized to Chromosome 4, proximal to D4Mit5 (3/25 recombinants), and non-recombinant with D4Mit235, D4Mit181, and D4Mit315. This map location corresponds with that of wheels (Whl) , a previously described dominant mutation with a similar heterozygous phenotype. Because the map position, inheritance, and phenotype of the new mutation matched that of wheels, we presumed it to be allelic and named it wheels-like (Whll).
Acknowledgements
We thank Julia Stadler for identification of the first mutant, Susan Cook and Ken Bosom for colony establishment and maintenance, and Coleen Marden, Heping Yu, Qing Yin Zheng and Norm Hawes for their technical expertise.
