The Genomes of Recombinant Inbred Lines: The Gory Details

Recombinant inbred lines (RILs) can serve as powerful tools for genetic mapping. Recently, members of the Complex Trait Consortium have proposed the development of a large panel of eight-way RILs in the mouse, derived from eight genetically diverse parental strains. Such a panel would be a valuable community resource. The use of such eight-way RILs will require a detailed understanding of the relationship between alleles at linked loci on an RI chromosome. We extend the work of Haldane and Waddington (1931) on twoway RILs and describe the map expansion, clustering of breakpoints, and other features of the genomes of multiple-strain RILs as a function of the level of crossover interference in meiosis. In this technical report, we present all of our results, in their gory detail. We don’t intend to include such details in the final publication, but want to present them here for those who might be interested.