The DGRP consists of 205 inbred lines derived from isofemale lines from a wild North Carolina population with fully sequenced genomes. The most recent release of the DGRP documents 4 853 802 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 1 296 080 non-SNP variants (insertions, deletions,

and copy number variants) as well as 16 polymorphic inversions [ 36•]. Sequence variation in this population can be correlated with phenotypic variation. The Drosophila genome is highly polymorphic and an extensive history of recombination has led to little local linkage disequilibrium, except within chromosomal inversions [ 36•]. Linkage disequilibrium decays within a few hundred base pairs [ 34••]. The absence of local linkage disequilibrium, as is found in the human genome [ 37], prevents the R428 cost use of tagging SNPs for association studies and instead requires comprehensive see more analyses of whole genome DNA sequences. The advantage is that causality can be more readily assigned to a gene or even a polymorphism within a gene. Thus, naturally occurring variants that survived the sieve of natural selection are a treasure trove for the analysis

of complex traits, including behaviors. All traits that have been measured on the DGRP to date show extensive phenotypic variation, including behavioral traits, such as sleep parameters [38•], startle behavior [17••] and olfactory response to the odorant benzaldehyde [18]. Genome wide association (GWA) studies employ a relatively small number of lines compared to the Isotretinoin numbers of polymorphic markers that are tested and, thus, polymorphic markers that are associated with variation in behavior rarely reach genome-wide statistical significance based on Bonferroni correction for multiple testing or permutation thresholds. This issue is, however, mitigated by several

factors. First, since there is minimal genetic variation among individuals within a line, phenotypic values can be determined with great precision, since essentially the same genotype can be measured repeatedly. Second, since all polymorphisms in the population are known, those with the highest P-values for association can be selected as candidate genes for downstream analyses ( Figure 3). Third, mutational analyses using the vast public resources available for the Drosophila community can verify that mutations in candidate genes identified in the GWA study indeed affect the behavioral phenotype. The fraction of such validation tests that confirm association of the gene with the behavior provides an estimate for an empirical false discovery rate. Finally, lines from each extreme of the phenotypic distribution can be intercrossed to form an advanced intercross population.