Sex differences in allometry for phenotypic traits in mice indicate that females are not scaled males

Sex differences in the lifetime risk and expression of disease are well-known. Preclinical research targeted at improving treatment, increasing health span, and reducing the financial burden of health care, has mostly been conducted on male animals and cells. The extent to which sex differences in p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2022-12, Vol.13 (1), p.7502-12, Article 7502
Main Authors: Wilson, Laura A. B., Zajitschek, Susanne R. K., Lagisz, Malgorzata, Mason, Jeremy, Haselimashhadi, Hamed, Nakagawa, Shinichi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/114/129/2043
631/136/334/1874/345
631/181
631/378/1804/1805
631/601
Allometry
Animals
Body Size
Body Weight
Consortia
Female
Females
Gender differences
Health care
Health risks
Humanities and Social Sciences
Male
Males
Mice
multidisciplinary
Phenotype
Phenotyping
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Sex Characteristics
Sex differences
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Summary:Sex differences in the lifetime risk and expression of disease are well-known. Preclinical research targeted at improving treatment, increasing health span, and reducing the financial burden of health care, has mostly been conducted on male animals and cells. The extent to which sex differences in phenotypic traits are explained by sex differences in body weight remains unclear. We quantify sex differences in the allometric relationship between trait value and body weight for 363 phenotypic traits in male and female mice, recorded in >2 million measurements from the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium. We find sex differences in allometric parameters (slope, intercept, residual SD) are common (73% traits). Body weight differences do not explain all sex differences in trait values but scaling by weight may be useful for some traits. Our results show sex differences in phenotypic traits are trait-specific, promoting case-specific approaches to drug dosage scaled by body weight in mice. Research aimed at improving healthcare has largely focused on male animals and cells. Here, the authors use data from the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium to show that body weight does not account for all phenotypic differences between male and female mice, supporting more female-focused research.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-022-35266-6