Variation in mouse pelvic morphology maps to locations enriched in Sox9 Class II and Pitx1 regulatory features

Variation in pelvic morphology has a complex genetic basis and its patterning and specification is governed by conserved developmental pathways. Whether the mechanisms underlying the differentiation and specification of the pelvis also produce the morphological covariation on which natural selection may act is still an open question in evolutionary developmental biology. We use high-resolution Quantitative Trait Locus (QTL) mapping in the F34 generation of an advanced intercross experiment (LG,SM-G34) to characterize the genetic architecture of the mouse pelvis. We test the prediction that genomic features linked to developmental patterning and differentiation of the hind limb and pelvis and the regulation of chondrogenesis are overrepresented in QTL. We find 31 single QTL-trait associations at the genome- or chromosome-wise significance level coalescing to 27 pleiotropic loci. We recover further QTL at a more relaxed significance threshold replicating locations found in a previous expe...