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Phylogenetics of the laboratory rat Rattus norvegicus
- A phylogenic tree consisting of 132 strains is available at The National BioResource Project for the Rat in Japan (NBRP).
- As the history of the generation and evolution of different rat strains is not well known, the generation of a phylogenetic tree by Canzian was limited by the available information. This genealogic tree consists of 63 strains and 214 substrains with information on their genetic and biochemical markers. BN possesses a distinct genetic divergence from all the other strains being consistent with the reports showing its origin from wild rats. RGD ID: 4145419.
- With more than 200 rats strains being bred as models of human diseases, laboratory rats have played an important role in biomedical research for over 100 years. The ACP project at RGD genotyped 48 commonly used rat inbred strains by using over 4800 microsatellite markers with known genomic locations. The microsatellite markers were integrated into the rat radiation hybrid (RH) map. In order to understand the relation between these markers, Canzian (RGD ID:4145419) constructed a simple distance model with percentages of genotype differences. It was found that BN represented the root of the rat strain phylogenetic tree. There are some drawbacks in this tree in that some closely related strains are widely separated. RGD ID: 4145418.
