The roads from phenotypic variation to gene discovery: mutagenesis versus QTLs

Abstract

In model organisms, chemical mutagenesis provides a powerful alternative to natural, polygenic variation (for example, quantitative trait loci (QTLs)) for identifying functional pathways and complex disease genes. Despite recent progress in QTLs, we expect that mutagenesis will ultimately prove more effective because the prospects of gene identification are high and every gene affecting a trait is potentially a target.