Nature Communications (Jun 2016)

Diverse genetic architectures lead to the same cryptic phenotype in a yeast cross

  • Matthew B. Taylor,
  • Joann Phan,
  • Jonathan T. Lee,
  • Madelyn McCadden,
  • Ian M. Ehrenreich

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11669
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. 1 – 6

Abstract

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Cryptic genetic variants may not individually show discernible phenotypic effects, but collectively, these polymorphisms can lead to unexpected, genetically complex traits that might be relevant to evolution and disease. Here, the authors use large yeast populations to comprehensively dissect the genetic bases of 17 independent occurrences of a phenotype that arises due to combinations of epistatically interacting cryptic variants.