Study provides an insight into how breeding practices may reduce the prevalence of common genetic disorders.
A study by researchers at the University of California, Davis, suggests that mixed breed dogs don’t necessarily have an advantage when it comes to inherited disorders.
The study, published in Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, provides a better understanding of the prevalence and source of such disorders, and could advance efforts to prevent and treat genetic disorders in both dogs and humans, the researchers say.
“Overall, the study showed that the prevalence of these genetic disorders among purebred and mixed-breed dogs depends on the specific condition,” said animal physiologist Anita Oberbauer, professor and chair of the Department of Animal Science at UC Davis and lead author of the study.
She noted, for example, that elbow dysplasia and dilated cardiomyopathy, appeared more frequently among purebred dogs. But rupture of the cranial cruciate ligament in the knee was more common in mixed breeds.
The researchers evaluated records for more than 90,000 purebred and mixed-breed dogs that were examined at the University of California Davis’ veterinary medical teaching hospital between 1995 and 2010.
From this group, 27,254 dogs were identified as having one or more of 24 genetic disorders, including various types of cancers, heart diseases, endocrine-system ailments and orthopaedic problems, as well as allergies, bloat, cataracts, epilepsy, lens luxation and portosystemic shunt.
The 24 disorders were selected for the study because they can be diagnosed accurately, are highly prevalent in the overall dog population and are debilitating to the extent that owners would seek veterinary care for the animal. In addition, the selected disorders represent a variety of different locations and physiologic systems in the dog’s body.
The researchers found that the prevalence of 13 of the 24 genetic disorders was approximately the same in purebred dogs as in their mixed-breed counterparts. Ten were found more frequently among purebred dogs, and one such disorder was more common in mixed-breeds.
The data also indicated that the more recently derived breeds or those breeds that shared a similar lineage were more susceptible to certain inherited disorders. For example, four of the top five breeds affected with elbow dysplasia were the Bernese mountain dog, Newfoundland, mastiff and Rottweiler - all from the mastiff-like lineage. This suggests that these breeds share gene mutations for elbow dysplasia because they were descended from a common ancestor.
In contrast, disorders that occurred equally among purebred and mixed-breed dogs appeared to represent ancient gene mutations that had become widely spread throughout the dog population. Such disorders included hip dysplasia, all of the tumour-causing cancers and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
Read article: Prevalence of inherited disorders among mixed-breed and purebred dogs: 27,254 cases (1995–2010) by Thomas P. Bellumori, Thomas R. Famula, Danika L. Bannasch, Janelle M. Belanger and Anita M. Oberbauer, published in Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (2013), vol. 242, no. 11, pp. 1549-1555