Intramembranous bone regeneration in diversity outbred mice is heritable

There are over one million cases of failed bone repair in the U.S. annually, resulting in substantial patient morbidity and societal costs. Multiple candidate genes affecting bone traits such as bone mineral density have been identified in human subjects and animal models using genome-wide association studies (GWAS). This approach for understanding the genetic factors affecting bone repair is impractical in human subjects but could be performed in a model organism if there is sufficient variability and heritability in the bone regeneration response. Diversity Outbred (DO) mice, which have significant genetic diversity and have been used to examine multiple intact bone traits, would be an excellent possibility. Thus, we sought to evaluate the phenotypic distribution of bone regeneration, sex effects and heritability of intramembranous bone regeneration on day 7 following femoral marrow ablation in 47 12-week old DO mice (23 males, 24 females). Compared to a previous study using 4 inbred mouse strains, we found similar levels of variability in the amount of regenerated bone (coefficient of variation of 86 % v. 88 %) with approximately the same degree of heritability (0.42 v. 0.49). There was a trend toward more bone regeneration in males than females. The amount of regenerated bone was either weakly or not correlated with bone mass at intact sites, suggesting that the genetic factors responsible for bone regeneration and intact bone phenotypes are at least partially independent. In conclusion, we demonstrate that DO mice exhibit variation and heritability of intramembranous bone regeneration that will be suitable for future GWAS.