Integrated Methods to Solve the Biological Basis of Common Diseases

Biological variations influence population variations of many common traits. Identification of the biological basis of many common diseases has been particularly difficult, but new reagents and analytical tools will greatly facilitate this process. The goal of this review is to discuss how to identify the biological basis of common traits by using mouse models. No single method will work for all traits. Understanding complex problems will require broadly based holistic approaches that use a wide array of tools and resources. A multiplicity of developed methods together provide the tools needed to identify the biological basis of any common trait. These tools, whole-genome linkage maps, maps of expressed genes, and statistical methods, deal with the complexities of multiple loci or correlated traits. This review provides some criteria for making choices about the likely productive approaches at each stage in the process of finding genes that influence common traits.