Establishing the hybrid rat diversity program: a resource for dissecting complex traits

Rat models have been a major model for studying complex disease mechanisms, behavioral phenotypes, environmental factors, and for drug development and discovery. Inbred rat strains control for genetic background and allow for repeated, reproducible, cellular and whole animal phenotyping. The Hybrid Rat Diversity Panel (HRDP) was designed to be a powerful panel of inbred rats with genomic, physiological, and behavioral data to serve as a resource for systems genetics. The HRDP consists of 96-98 inbred rat strains aimed to maximize power to detect specific genetic loci associated with complex traits while maximizing the genetic diversity among strains. The panel consists of 32-34 genetically diverse inbred strains and two panels of recombinant inbred panels. To establish the HRDP program, embryo resuscitation and breeding were done to establish colonies for distribution. Whole genome sequencing was performed to achieve 30X coverage. Genomic, phenotype, and strain information is available through the Hybrid Rat Diversity Panel Portal at the Rat Genome Database ( http://rgd.mcw.edu ).