High-resolution mapping of quantitative trait loci for sternopleural bristle number in Drosophila melanogaster

We have mapped quantitative trait loci (QTL) harboring naturally occurring allelic variation for Drosophila bristle number. Lines with high (H) and low (L) sternopleural bristle number were derived by artificial selection from a large base population. Isogenic H and L sublines were extracted from the selection lines, and populations of X and third chromosome H/L recombinant isogenic lines were constructed in the homozygous low line background. The polymorphic cytological locations of roo transposable elements provided a dense molecular marker map with an average intermarker distance of 4.5 cM. Two X chromosome and six chromosome 3 QTL affecting response to selection for sternopleural bristle number and three X chromosome and three chromosome 3 QTL affecting correlated response in abdominal bristle number were detected using a composite interval mapping method. The average effects of bristle number QTL were moderately large, and some had sex-specific effects. Epistasis between QTL affecting sternopleural bristle number was common, and interaction effects were large. Many of the intervals containing bristle number QTL coincided with those mapped in previous studies. However, resolution of bristle number QTL to the level of genetic loci is not trivial, because the genomic regions containing bristle number QTL often did not contain obvious candidate loci, and results of quantitative complementation tests to mutations at candidate loci affecting adult bristle number were ambiguous.