HBCGM is one of several methods that are being utilized to advance murine genetic analysis. For example, large arrays of ~1000 recombinant inbred mouse strains are being produced as a genetic-mapping resource [30]. HBCGM methodology could be used to analyze phenotypic datasets obtained from these strains. However, despite the large number of recombinants, this panel only contains the genetic variation present within eight founder strains. Although some phenotypes that are not found in the parental strains could appear within recombinant strains, it will have a limited ability to analyze many disease traits whose causative genes are not variable within the limited set of founder strains. However, the acetaminophen study [17] also illustrates a very significant limitation of using these recombinant panels. Because the strain that was uniquely resistant to acetaminophen-induced liver toxicity was not among the founder strains, this panel could offer little insight into this important problem. If a SNP of interest happens to be in the recombinant strain panel, HBGCM of data obtained from analysis of a panel of inbred strains could be used to quickly identify the candidate genes located within an identified QTL interval, as we have already demonstrated [19, 20].
