Rapid update

Abstract

While geneticists favour the mouse as their model organism of choice (not least because embryonic stem-cell technology to generate knockouts and transgenics is now relatively straightforward), physiologists have traditionally favoured the rat. In the May issue of Nature Genetics, Akira Tanigami (Otsuka GEN Research Institute, Tokushima, Japan), Michael James (Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Oxford, UK) and colleagues have helped the rat to win another round in the battle of the model organisms. They have produced the first high-resolution map of the entire rat genome using a radiation hybrid panel (a series of cell lines, each of which contains a fragment of a rat chromosome). This map contains over 5000 markers, including 3000 previously undescribed ones. They have also produced detailed comparative human–rat and mouse–rat maps. The new maps will be an invaluable resource for identifying disease-associated genes, particularly those involved in complex genetic diseases such as hypertension, type II diabetes and renal disease, for which there are excellent rat models.