were located both within an eQTL and a bQTL, and eight of these 22 candidate genes had expression levels correlated with acute functional tolerance to the incoordinating effects of ethanol in BXD strains. Further analysis of the candidate gene promoters identified 15 over-represented transcription factor binding sites. Among those, binding motifs for Usf1 were present in the promoter of 14 of the 22 candidate genes, while Srebf1 was localized within a bQTL for ethanol acute functional tolerance. The last study also integrated gene expression and acute functional tolerance data from 20 inbred mouse strains, as well as 30 BXD recombinant inbred strains [37]. Eight genes fulfilled the filtering criteria for the selection of candidate genes, including overlap between eQTL and bQTL, correlation between expression level and acute functional tolerance, and high heritability. Consensus sequences for the transcription factors Elk1, Arnt-Ahr, Irf1, Creb1 and E2f1 were present in five to seven of the eight candidate genes. A major limitation to the biological significance of these findings, however, is that none of the transcription factors whose binding motif was over-represented in the candidate gene promoters was differentially expressed in the brain of LAFT and HAFT mice. Moreover, there was a particularly poor
