Chronic alcohol intake is associated with widespread disruptions in sleep and circadian rhythms in both human alcoholics and in experimental animals. Recent studies have demonstrated that chronic and acute ethanol treatments alter fundamental properties of the circadian pacemaker--including free-running period and responsiveness to photic and nonphotic phase-shifting stimuli--in rats and hamste...

Previous studies of inbred mouse strains have shown reinforcer-strain interactions that may potentially mask differences among strains in memory performance. The present research examined the effects of two qualitatively different reinforcers (heterogeneous mix of flavored pellets and sweetened-condensed milk) on responding maintained by fixed-ratio schedules of reinforcement in three inbred st...

Genes of the DAZ family play critical roles in germ cell development in mammalsand other animals. In mice, Dazl mRNA is first observed at embryonic day 11.5 (El 1.5),but previous studies using Dazl-deficient mice of mixed genetic background have largelyemphasized postnatal spermatogenic defects. Using an inbred C57BL/6 background, weshow that Dazl is required for embryonic devel...

Mus spretus from four stocks, originating in Spain, Portugal, and Morocco, were tested for the maternally transmitted antigen, Mta. All expressed a variant form not found in other species of mice. Analysis of appropriate crosses with inbred mice showed that the spretus form of Mta is determined by a new allele, c, of the Hmt gene. The Hmtc allele has been isolated in coupling with four differen...

A 9-kb repetitive DNA fragment (70-38) located near the centromere of the mouse X chromosome is amplified and translocated to an autosome in different inbred strains of mice. In situ hybridization and hybrid cell studies showed that probe 70-38 is located only on the X chromosome in mouse strains A/J, AKR/J, BALB/cJ, CBA/J, C3H/HeJ, C57BL/6J, DBA/2J and SWR/J. However, in four other mouse strai...

The BXSB strain of recombinant inbred mice develops a spontaneous pathology that closely resembles the human disease systemic lupus erythematosus. Six non-MHC loci, Yaa, Bxs1-4, and Bxs6, have been linked to the development of aspects of the disease while a further locus, Bxs5, may be a BXSB-derived disease suppressor. Disease development is delayed in a substrain of BXSB, BXSB/MpJScr-long-live...

Recent experiments in our laboratory have revealed a genetic correlation of the sensitivity of inbred mouse strains to different assays of nociception using noxious heat stimuli. An open question is whether the property of the noxious stimulus underlying the genetic correlation is heat specifically or simply a temperature (hot or cold) in the noxious range. The existing electrophysiological, ps...

The genetic basis of the control of acute splenic MCMV infection was studied after intraperitoneal inoculation of the virus. Classical Mendelian analyses using C57BL/6 (resistant) and BALB/c (susceptible) parental strains disclosed an autosomal dominant non-H-2 gene that regulates splenic virus replication. The probable location of this gene, to which we have assigned the symbol Cmv-1, is on ch...

Prepulse inhibition (PPI) of acoustic startle is a genetically complex quantitative phenotype of considerable medical interest due to its impairment in psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. To identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) involved in mouse PPI, we studied mouse chromosome substitution strains (CSS) that each carry a homologous chromosome pair from the A/J inbred strain on a hos...

Dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced murine colitis represents an experimental model for human inflammatory bowel disease. The aim of this study was to screen various inbred strains of mice for genetically determined differences in susceptibility to DSS-induced colitis. Mice of strains C3H/HeJ, C3H/HeJBir, C57BL/6J, DBA/2J, NOD/LtJ, NOD/LtSz- Prkdcscid/Prkdcscid , 129/SvPas, NON/LtJ, and NON.NO...