Background
A major concern of current purebred domestic dog populations is the high prevalence of several genetic diseases. Many of the most prevalent diseases seen in the dog are also commonly distributed in human. The dog shares to great extent the genetic makeup with us, but also the environmental exposure. Therefore, identification of disease causing genes in the dog may aid the identification of orthologous disease causing genes in human. With several hundred genetic diseases and an advantageous genome structure, dogs are ideal for mapping genes that cause disease in dogs, but also in human.
The inbreeding in dogs is especially valuable in studies of genetic risks in complex diseases.
In human, different mutations, even different genes, may be at fault in the same disease. But because each dog breed is an isolated, inbred population that typically dates back just a few hundred years, not a lot of time has passed for the dogs in any breed to develop multiple mutations for the same disorder.
Canine Lymphocytic Thyroiditis (CLT) is a complex disease of the immune system that affects multiple dog breeds in high frequency. The corresponding disease in human is called Hashimotos disease and affects mainly women in their middle age.
Aim
Our aim is to identify “high risk alleles” for CLT, which will provide new insights into canine and human health.