In the current review, we summarize results of genetic analyses of "metabolic syndrome" in the spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR). These results include (1) linkage analyses in the HXB/BXH recombinant inbred (RI) strains derived from SHR and Brown Norway (BN-Lx) strains which revealed quantitative trait loci (QTL) for hemodynamic and metabolic traits on several chromosomes, (2) genetic isolation of these putative QTL within differential chromosome segments of SHR.BN congenic strains, (3) detailed mapping of these QTL within limited chromosome segments of SHR.BN congenic sublines, (4) sequencing of selected positional candidate genes which revealed important mutations in the Cd36 and Srebp1 SHR genes, (5) functional tests of these candidate genes in SHR transgenic lines, and (6) integrated gene expression profiling and linkage mapping in RI strains which will be used to identify co-regulated genes and to determine co-segregation of transcriptional profiles with physiological and pathophysiological phenotypes.

Department of Genetics of Model Diseases Institute of Physiology Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and Center for Integrated Genomics Prague Czech Republic

Research on Experimental Hypertension in Prague (1966-2009)

Circadian Disruption as a Risk Factor for Development of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders - From Animal Models to Human Population

Systems genetics in the rat HXB/BXH family identifies Tti2 as a pleiotropic quantitative trait gene for adult hippocampal neurogenesis and serum glucose

Circadian alignment in a foster mother improves the offspring's pathological phenotype

Unsupervised, Statistically Based Systems Biology Approach for Unraveling the Genetics of Complex Traits: A Demonstration with Ethanol Metabolism

Uncovering the liver's role in immunity through RNA co-expression networks

Entrainment of spontaneously hypertensive rat fibroblasts by temperature cycles

Early chronotype and tissue-specific alterations of circadian clock function in spontaneously hypertensive rats

Global transcriptome analysis of the C57BL/6J mouse testis by SAGE: evidence for nonrandom gene order