Prevalence of sexual dimorphism in mammalian phenotypic traits.
Natasha A KarpJeremy C MasonArthur L BeaudetYoav BenjaminiLynette BowerRobert E BraunSteve D M BrownElissa J CheslerMary E DickinsonAnn M FlennikenHelmut FuchsMartin Hrabě de AngelisXiang GaoShiying GuoSimon GreenawayRuth HellerYann HéraultMonica J JusticeNatalja KurbatovaChristopher J LelliottK C Kent LloydAnn-Marie MallonJudith E MankHiroshi MasuyaColin McKerlieTerrence F MeehanRichard F MottStephen A MurrayHelen ParkinsonRamiro Ramirez-SolisLuis SantosJohn R SeavittDamian SmedleyTania SorgAnneliese O SpeakKaren P SteelKaren L Svensonnull nullShigeharu WakanaDavid WestSara WellsHenrik WesterbergShay YaacobyJacqueline K WhitePublished in: Nature communications (2017)
The role of sex in biomedical studies has often been overlooked, despite evidence of sexually dimorphic effects in some biological studies. Here, we used high-throughput phenotype data from 14,250 wildtype and 40,192 mutant mice (representing 2,186 knockout lines), analysed for up to 234 traits, and found a large proportion of mammalian traits both in wildtype and mutants are influenced by sex. This result has implications for interpreting disease phenotypes in animal models and humans.