Using genomic resources for linkage analysis in Peromyscus with an application for characterizing Dominant Spot.

The expanding genomic resources for Peromyscus facilitate their use in linkage analysis studies, enabling the identification of loci associated with specific traits. More specifically, we have linked a coat color spotting phenotype, Dominant spot, with Sox10, a member the neural crest gene regulatory network, and that there are likely two genetic modifiers that interact with Dominant spot. These results establish Peromyscus as a model system for identifying new alleles of the neural crest gene regulatory network.