Report on PRA in Tibetan Spaniels - Maureen Sharp
February
2005
Beryl
Grounds and I visited the Animal Health Trust today.
We were told that in December 2004 a $30 million
project, funded by the National Human Genome Research
Institute (NHGRI) in the United States, had been
completed. The entire sequence of dog DNA is now
known and is available to all researchers worldwide.
This significant advance should make the quest to
find the gene that causes PRA in Tibetan Spaniels
considerably easier. The AHT has just received funding
from the American Kennel Club (AKC) to investigate
23 genes that are known to be involved either with
PRA in other breeds of dog or with very similar
diseases in humans and dogs, to check whether any
play a role in PRA in Tibetan spaniels. This is
known as a candidate gene approach. Prior to the
availability of the whole canine genome sequence
a candidate gene analysis was too lengthy and expensive
an approach to consider unless a genomic region
had first been identified, They are proposing to
start the work in March and the initial phase is
expected to take approximately three months. If
this approach is successful, and they have some
hope that this will be the case, they will then
proceed onto designing the DNA test for Tibetan
Spaniels. Hopefully by this time next year significant
progress towards a test will have been made.
In
the meantime they are still needing blood samples
from any new cases of PRA and the families involved.
We understand that there is a new case in Sweden,
one in Finland and one in the USA. We have been
in contact with the people involved and are hoping
that blood samples from each PRA case and their
family will be available to the Animal Health Trust
in the near future. As you know the problem in getting
the solution to PRA in Tibetan Spaniels is the fact
that the disease is usually of late onset, the small
size of litters and the relatively small number
of affected dogs. It is therefore important to get
all the applicable blood samples.
The
Animal Health Trust gratefully acknowledges the
financial contribution made towards the work by
the Tibetan Spaniel PRA Fund and the American Kennel
Club.
Maureen
Sharp (Co-ordinator - PRA Fund) - 2 February 2005
