Science News - Canine and Human diseases

Researchers have found that pure bred dogs are ideal for mapping genes that cause diseases, which may help scientists understand the molecular basis for both canine and human diseases.  Almost two years ago, researchers at the Broad Institute decoded the genome of the domestic dog and they created a catalog of about 2.5 million specific genetic differences across breeds.  Due to the selective breeding of dogs over the past two centuries, scientists uncovered a genomic structure about 100 times larger than those found in the human genome. This will provide a shortcut that will allow researchers to investigate canine disease by using a few hundred animals to characterize diseases, compared to thousands of subjects that are required to study similar diseases in humans.  If you want to learn more about the work of the Broad Institute and perhaps help with their research efforts, visit dogDNA.org.

Karlsson et al. (2007) “Efficient mapping of mendelian traits in dogs through genome-wide association.” Nature Genetics DOI:10.1038/ng.2007.10