Survey of 21 inbred mouse strains in two laboratories reveals that BTBR T/+ tf/tf has severely reduced hippocampal commissure and absent corpus callosum

A morphometric survey of brain size and forebrain commissures of 21 inbred mouse strains from the Jackson Laboratory was done with animals tested in two laboratories as part of the Mouse Phenome Project. Strain BTBR T/+ tf/tf was found to have 100% total absence of the corpus callosum as well as severe reduction of the hippocampal commissure in almost every animal, the most severe commissure defect observed to date in any commercially available mouse strain. The strain 129S1/SvImJ had a milder defect with incomplete penetrance. Crosses of BTBR mice with inbred strains BALB/cWah1, 129P1/ReJ, and the recombinant strain 9XCA/Wah having a severe commissure defect supported a two-locus model of the genetic defect in these strains. Brain size varied greatly among strains but for any one strain was almost identical in mice housed for 5 weeks in the two laboratories. Sex differences in brain weight and forebrain commissure sizes were not statistically significant.