A Quantitative Genetic Analysis of Locomotor Activity in CXB Recombinant Inbred Mice

Recent studies have identified genes that influence the length of the circadian period maintained by mice housed under constant lighting conditions. However, a less studied circadian activity variable is the amplitude of daily oscillations in locomotor activity. This parameter reflects spontaneous activity exhibited under standard lighting and housing conditions and, therefore, differs conceptually from assessments of exploratory or open-field activity, voluntary wheel-running, or circadian period during exposure to constant light or constant darkness conditions. We recently observed a greater daily amplitude of oscillation in spontaneous locomotor activity in C57BL/6 mice compared to BALB/cBy mice. To identify genetic loci with potential linkage to circadian variation in the amount of locomotor activity, we measured the spontaneous activity of 13 CXB recombinant inbred (RI) strains of mice. The probability density distributions of locomotor activity phenotypes for the 13 CXB RI strains were consistent with the presence of a low number of major quantitative trait loci affecting this trait. Regions of chromosomes 3, 8, 12, 13, and 19 showed provisional linkage to strain variation in locomotor activity. Probabilities of linkage were not sufficient for declaration of an activity-related quantitative trait locus but were sufficient to warrant further analysis either with additional RI strains or with F₂ panels.