A review of QTL and knock-out studies for emotionality in mice

Rens de Groot¹, Nico Lakenberg², Eline Slagboom², and Dorret Boomsma<sup>1

1</sup> Vrije Universiteit, Department Biological Psychology, Amsterdam 
² Gaubius Laboratory, TNO Prevention and Health, Leiden

Anxiety-related behaviour in mice called "emotionality" has been studied extensively. We reviewed mouse QTL and knock-out studies for emotionality and combined the results with the latest knowledge of mouse and human homology (www.informatics.jax.org). Results of 24 mouse studies were ordered and used for creating maps in which the locations of QTL's and knock-out genes are shown both at mouse and human chromosomes. The combination of these two sources gives an good overview of candidate regions for emotionality in humans based on mouse studies. Mouse chromosomes 1, 10, 12, and 15 show regions with replication and are therefore candidates for further investigation. We present an overview of the literature and four mouse-human homolgy maps of the most promising regions.