H-2-associated quantitative traits; statistical analysis of the relative contributions of the H-2 linked genes and...

Several associations have been recently reported of the kind that a certain H-2 haplotype tends to be accompanied by a low value and another H-2 haplotype by a high value of some quantitative traits. This includes also the weights of lymphoid and reproductive organs. In order to throw more light on the seeming clustering within the H-2 gene complex of the genetic determinants of such traits, statistical analysis of the relative contributions of the H-2 and the total residual genotypes to the variations in the weight of the thymus, spleen, lymph nodes, testes, seminal vesicles and ovaries was performed. Ten genotypically uniform populations of 2-month-old mice, each consisting of 31 males and 31 females, were analyzed using two different statistical procedures. Four of them were mice of the inbred strains A (H-2a), B10 (H-2b), A.BY (H-2b) and B10.A (H-2a) and six were various F1 hybrids derived from these four strains. The conclusion based on both approaches was that the relative contribution to the variations in the weight of the tested organs from the H-2 haplotype is much smaller or maximally not greater than the contribution from the total residual genotype.