TY - JOUR TI - Barcoded bulk QTL mapping reveals highly polygenic and epistatic architecture of complex traits in yeast AU - Nguyen Ba, Alex N AU - Lawrence, Katherine R AU - Rego-Costa, Artur AU - Gopalakrishnan, Shreyas AU - Temko, Daniel AU - Michor, Franziska AU - Desai, Michael M A2 - Verstrepen, Kevin J A2 - Barkai, Naama A2 - Verstrepen, Kevin J VL - 11 PY - 2022 DA - 2022/02/11 SP - e73983 C1 - eLife 2022;11:e73983 DO - 10.7554/eLife.73983 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.73983 AB - Mapping the genetic basis of complex traits is critical to uncovering the biological mechanisms that underlie disease and other phenotypes. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in humans and quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping in model organisms can now explain much of the observed heritability in many traits, allowing us to predict phenotype from genotype. However, constraints on power due to statistical confounders in large GWAS and smaller sample sizes in QTL studies still limit our ability to resolve numerous small-effect variants, map them to causal genes, identify pleiotropic effects across multiple traits, and infer non-additive interactions between loci (epistasis). Here, we introduce barcoded bulk quantitative trait locus (BB-QTL) mapping, which allows us to construct, genotype, and phenotype 100,000 offspring of a budding yeast cross, two orders of magnitude larger than the previous state of the art. We use this panel to map the genetic basis of eighteen complex traits, finding that the genetic architecture of these traits involves hundreds of small-effect loci densely spaced throughout the genome, many with widespread pleiotropic effects across multiple traits. Epistasis plays a central role, with thousands of interactions that provide insight into genetic networks. By dramatically increasing sample size, BB-QTL mapping demonstrates the potential of natural variants in high-powered QTL studies to reveal the highly polygenic, pleiotropic, and epistatic architecture of complex traits. KW - quantitative trait loci KW - pleiotropy KW - epistasis KW - polygenic traits JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -