Mouse segmental duplication and copy number variation

Abstract

Evan Eichler and colleagues assess copy number variation of the C57BL/6J duplicated regions in 15 mouse strains used for genetic association studies. They report that mice show comparable copy number polymorphism when compared to humans, but that it is more locally restricted, specifically to regions containing gene families associated with spermatogenesis, pregnancy, viviparity, pheromone signaling and the immune response. Detailed analyses of the clone-based genome assembly reveal that the recent duplication content of mouse (4.94%) is now comparable to that of human (5.5%), in contrast to previous estimates from the whole-genome shotgun sequence assembly. However, the architecture of mouse and human genomes differs markedly: most mouse duplications are organized into discrete clusters of tandem duplications that show depletion of genes and transcripts and enrichment of long interspersed nuclear element (LINE) and long terminal repeat (LTR) retroposons. We assessed copy number variation of the C57BL/6J duplicated regions within 15 mouse strains previously used for genetic association studies, sequencing and the Mouse Phenome Project. We determined that over 60% of these base pairs are polymorphic among the strains (on average, there was 20 Mb of copy-number-variable DNA between different mouse strains). Our data suggest that different mouse strains show comparable, if not greater, copy number polymorphism when compared to human; however, such variation is more locally restricted. We show large and complex patterns of interstrain copy number variation restricted to large gene families associated with spermatogenesis, pregnancy, viviparity, pheromone signaling and immune response.