Haldane, Bailey, Taylor and recombinant-inbred lines.

Abstract

THAT mouse Mecca, the Jackson Laboratory, has repeatedly pioneered in bringing mouse genetics to its present state. There was George Snell's Nobel-Prize-winning work on histocompatibility, Roy Stevens' work on embryonal carcinoma, Tibby Russell's on hematopoiesis, and many others (reviewed by Paigen 2003a,b). It has also been the site of several important methodological innovations. First and most important, C. C. Little had the foresight to establish inbred lines (Crow 2002). His first line was started in 1909; by 1980, there were >300 (Paigen 2003a). Another innovation was the development of congenic strains—inbred lines with a small foreign chromosomal region introgressed by repeated backcrossing into the line (Snell 1948). A third was chromosome substitution (consomic) strains. These have a single chromosome introgressed into an inbred line (Singer et al. 2004). The fourth innovation, in many ways the cleverest, was recombinant inbred (RI) lines. These innovations each required many years of advance work before they could be utilized effectively. Such projects certainly would not fare well as grant applications today. Only in an organization with a long-time commitment, such as the Jackson Laboratory, could such projects be carried through.