Identification of Genomic Regions Associated with Phenotypic Variation between Dog Breeds using Selection Mapping

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Diversité génétique, taille des ouvrières et division du travail chez la fourmi polyandre Cataglyphis cursor

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Effect of stress on blood pressure measured by Doppler ultrasonography and high definition oscillometry in a large population of working dogs

The stress induced by the indirect blood pressure measurement procedure may contribute to increase systolic blood pressure and sometimes lead to a false diagnosis of hypertension. Cortisol dosage has already been used as an indicator of stress state in dogs. The purpose of this study was to compare, in a well standardized population of working dogs, the influence of stress on systolic blood pressure measured by two indirect blood pressure devices: Doppler ultrasonography and high definition oscillometry (HDO). This study is included in the lupa project, a large European collaboration aiming at the identification of genetic variants influencing blood pressure. First, we tested the intra-day (5 measures) and inter-day (5 exams) repeatability of the two devices in 5 beagle dogs. The variation coefficients for systolic arterial pressure (SAP) measured by Doppler and HDO were lower than 10%. Thereafter, we included 70 healthy Belgian Shepherds from Belgian police department and from Belgian army. All dogs were male, working dogs, between 2 and 6 years old. The SAP was always measured by the same trained operator, under the same standardized procedure, in a calm environment. The Doppler measurement was made at the beginning of the exam and the HDO measurement 20 minutes after the Doppler test. At the end of the exam, a blood sample was taken to measure cortisol level. At each measurement, stress level and difficulty to perform the exam were scored by a four levels scale. The SAP measured by Doppler and HDO were highly correlated (R = 0.429, p < 0,001). Nevertheless, SAP measured by the Doppler device (159mmHg ± 3.374) was higher (p < 0,001.) than SAP measured by HDO (143mmHg ± 1.877). The SAP measured by the Doppler device was positively correlated to the stress level (R = 0.612, p < 0,001), the difficulty of measurement (R = 0.394, p < 0.01) and blood cortisol concentration (R = 0.336, p < 0.02) while only a weak correlation was observed between SAP measured by HDO and the stress level (R = 0,262, p = 0,045). These results suggest that the SAP value measured by a Doppler device is more importantly influenced by the stress level than the SAP value measured by HDO. Therefore, in nervous dogs such as working Belgian Shepherds, the HDO method seems more suitable than the Doppler method

Genome Wide Association Study of 40 Clinical Measurements in Eight Dog Breeds

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Identification of a new mutation responsible for primary ciliary dyskinesia in dogs: a model for human PCD

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Genetic analysis of a glomerulonephropathy segregating in a pedigree of French Mastiff.

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Data from: The shepherds' tale: a genome-wide study across 9 dog breeds implicates two loci in the regulation of fructosamine serum concentration in Belgian shepherds

Diabetes mellitus is a serious health problem in both dogs and humans. Certain dog breeds show high prevalence of the disease, whereas other breeds are at low risk. Fructosamine and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) are two major biomarkers of glycaemia where serum concentrations reflect glucose turnover over the past few weeks to months. In this study, we searched for genetic factors influencing variation in serum fructosamine concentration in healthy dogs using data from nine dog breeds. Considering all breeds together, we did not find any genome-wide significant associations to fructosamine serum concentration. However, by performing breed-specific analyses we revealed an association on CFA 3 (pcorrected ≈ 1.68 × 10−6) in Belgian shepherd dogs. The associated region and its close neighborhood harbours interesting candidate genes such as LETM1 and GAPDH that are important in glucose metabolism and have previously been implicated in the aetiology of diabetes mellitus. To further explore the genetics of this breed specificity, we screened the genome for reduced heterozygosity stretches private to the Belgian shepherd breed. This revealed a region with reduced heterozygosity that shows a statistically significant interaction (p = 0.025) with the association region on CFA3. This region also harbours some interesting candidate genes and regulatory regions but the exact mechanisms underlying the interaction are still unknown. Nevertheless, this finding provides a plausible explanation for breed-specific genetic effects for complex traits in dogs. Shepherd breeds are at low risk of developing diabetes mellitus. The findings in Belgian shepherds could be connected to a protective mechanism against the disease. Further insight into the regulation of glucose metabolism could improve diagnostic and therapeutic methods for diabetes mellitus