This study shows that PAXgene isolated peripheral blood RNA is a powerful resource for investigating functional consequences of genetic variation. We have shown that for some of the cis-eQTLs the functional consequences are more complex than previously assumed. Additionally, these findings imply that biological relationships can be extracted in outbred populations, although in a somewhat different manner than what is commonly used to detect biological relationships through trans-eQTLs in inbred model organisms.
