SW.B6-Soa^b/J

Stock number: 004770
Research areas: Sensorineural Research

Description

The Soa^b variant confers insensitivity to bitter tasting acylated sugars. This congenic strain has a congenic interval with the Soa^b variant from C57BL/6J on the SWR/J host background and is valuable in the study of taste preference.

Detailed description

C57BL/6J, like SJL/J, BDP/J, C57L/J, and 129P3/J, is insensitive to the bitter compound sucrose octaacetate (SOA) as well as raffinose undeca-acetate and other acylated sugars, and is therefore referred to as a non-taster for SOA. This trait is recessive to the trait of sensitivity (taster) carried by the SWR/J strain, but dominant to the trait of demi-taster, which is averse to 1mM SOA but tolerant of 0.1 mM SOA, and is a strain characteristic of many inbred strains including DBA/2J, LP/J, PL/J, RF/J, NZB/BlNJ, AKR/J, ABP/Le, BALB/cByJ, BALB/cJ, C3HeB/FeJ, and C3H/HeJ (Lush, 1981, Harder et al., 1992). This trait has been mapped to distal Chromosome 6, the Soa locus, with the taster allele (aversion) being assigned Soa^a, the non-taster allele being assigned Soa^b and the demi-taster allele being assigned Soa^c. The underlying gene(s) and sequence differences remain to be defined. This congenic strain has a congenic interval with the Soa^b variant from C57BL/6J on the SWR/J host background, and is valuable in the study of taste preference. This congenic interval is less than 10 cM (Bachmanov 2001, Inoue 2001). Please see Stock No. 006435 for a strain with the taster (Soa^a) variant on a demi-taster background.

Development

This congenic was generated in the laboratory of Dr. G. Whitney at Florida State University via the backcross-intercross breeding system using SWR/J for the host strain and C57BL/6J as the donor strain. The two-bottle SOA preference test made on the intercross offspring at each intercross generation to identify those homozygous for the C57BL/6J-derived insensitivity trait, Soa^b. At N10 the mice were intercrossed to homozygosity and maintained by sibling inbreeding and at N10F23 homozygotes were transferred to The Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia and maintained by Dr. Alexander Bachmanov. In 2003, at generation N10F36, homozygous mice were sent to The Jackson Laboratory where they were further sibling mated and embryos were cryopreserved from mice at approximately N10F36+F6.

Allele

Symbol: Soa^b
Name: sucrose octaacetate aversion, b variant
MGI accession ID: MGI:3689010
Generation method: Not Applicable
Synonyms: blind; nontaster
Marker symbol: Soa
Marker name: sucrose octaacetate aversion
Chromosome: 6
Strain of origin: Not Applicable
General note: Alleles in dominance order are : a allele - taster (avoidance at <1mM concentration) in SWR/J; b allele - nontaster (no avoidance) in BDP/J, C57BL/6J, C57BR/cdJ, C57L/J, SJL/J and 129/J; c allele - demitaster (avoidance near saturation) in ABP/Le, AKR/J, BALB/cByJ, BALB/cJ, C3HeB/FeJ, C3H/HeJ, DBA/2J, LP/J, NZB/BINJ, PL/J and RF/J. J:3143