passages: PMC-3039624-sec-11__text
passages: sec
passages: The importance in identifying genes involved in spinal curvature
  Spinal curvature is a prevalent and costly deformity among humans and teleosts. The estimated annual cost of treating children hospitalized with idiopathic scoliosis (IS) in the United States alone is over $3 billion. This cost estimate does not consider Scheuermann kyphosis, or adults with idiopathic-type spinal curvature who suffer from chronic back pain, contributing to the estimated $849 billion cost of treatment and lost wages associated with musculoskeletal disease [24]. Among teleosts, spinal column deformities reduce total production in the aquaculture industry substantially [12]. In contrast to humans, teleost curve phenotypes are less well characterized; although heritable curves are acknowledged to account for many cases among cultured stocks, whether these cases are from congenital defects or are idiopathic-type is often not known.
  Despite the prevalence and impact of this type of deformity, the genetic architecture and specific genes involved are unknown. The current view is that human idiopathic-type scoliosis is a complex genetic disorder with multiple genes segregating in the population exhibiting complex genotype by environment interactions [25-30]. In aquaculture stocks, inheritance for spinal curvature has been described as Mendelian recessive or dominant, as well as polygenic, depending on how well the phenotype is characterized and what stock is considered (reviewed in [13], [16]). The guppy curveback phenotype has been extensively characterized so that the lineage can be applied as a model for understanding the biological context of heritable spinal curvature [1,7-9]. Future studies can use approaches to map QTL affecting shape based on digital photos [31,32], rather than the qualitative scale used in the present study. The identification of QTL in this study is a first step in understanding the genetics of this type of deformity and will lead to the identification of biological pathways associated with spinal integrity.
  