Timmermans, S. et al. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 114, 9158–9163 (2017).

In the last 100 years, the number of inbred mouse strains has grown to over 500. While C57BL/6J is the best characterized strain, many other strains serve to address particular research questions. In assessing the connection between genotype and phenotype, it is important to understand how the genetic background in a particular strain affects the penetrance of a mutation. To facilitate a user-friendly search of 36 inbred mouse strains, Timmermans et al. developed a database that lists all new STOP codons or loss of STOP codons, single-nucleotide variants, and short insertions and deletions. Mousepost.de compares these protein-inactivating mutations to the C57BL/6J background. Researchers can now easily search for naturally defective alleles in their strain of choice to determine whether these alleles impact the phenotype they are studying.