Practical approaches to determining disease-susceptible loci in multigenic autoimmune models

Linkage analysis using polymorphic DNA markers has paved the way toward the identification of genes responsible for rare recessive traits and for the susceptibility to certain tumors in humans. However, genetic susceptibility to common diseases, including systemic autoimmune diseases, is difficult to determine, hence has remained a challenging problem in the field of molecular genetics. Elucidation of multiple quantitative trait loci that predispose individuals to multi-phenotypic systemic autoimmune disease requires formidable research efforts, and there is a growing consensus that mouse models are required. This review provides a guide to methods that can be used in linkage studies of autoimmune mice. Mouse studies in relation to recent advances in bio-informatics are also discussed.