Large differences in collateral blood vessel abundance among individuals arise from multiple genetic variants

Collateral blood flow varies greatly among humans for reasons that remain unclear, resulting in significant differences in ischemic tissue damage. A similarly large variation has also been found in mice that is caused by genetic background-dependent differences in the extent of collateral formation, termed collaterogenesis—a unique angiogenic process that occurs during development and determines collateral number and diameter in the adult. Previous studies have identified several quantitative trait loci (QTL) linked to this variation. However, understanding has been hampered by the use of closely related inbred strains that do not model the wide genetic variation present in the “outbred” human population. The Collaborative Cross (CC) multiparent mouse genetic reference panel was developed to address this limitation. Herein we measured the number and average diameter of cerebral collaterals in 60 CC strains, their 8 founder strains, 8 F1 crosses of CC strains selected for abundant versus sparse collaterals, and 2 intercross populations created from the latter. Collateral number evidenced 47-fold variation among the 60 CC strains, with 14% having poor, 25% poor-to-intermediate, 47% intermediate-to-good, and 13% good collateral abundance, that was associated with large differences in post-stroke infarct volume. Collateral number in skeletal muscle and intestine of selected high- and low-collateral strains evidenced the same relative abundance as in brain. Genome-wide mapping demonstrated that collateral abundance is a highly polymorphic trait. Subsequent analysis identified: 6 novel QTL circumscribing 28 high-priority candidate genes harboring putative loss-of-function polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with low collateral number; 335 predicted-deleterious SNPs present in their human orthologs; and 32 genes associated with vascular development but lacking protein coding variants. Six additional suggestive QTL (LOD > 4.5) were also identified in CC-wide QTL mapping. This study provides a comprehensive set of candidate genes for future investigations aimed at identifying signaling proteins within the collaterogenesis pathway whose variants potentially underlie genetic-dependent collateral insufficiency in brain and other tissues.