We need your help....
I posted a plea on FaceBook, to ask if all Bullmastiff owners would join me and Professor Leeb develop a test for this horrendous disease?
Your contribution could help so many Bullmastiffs and I urge you all to take part, at the moment we really need as many samples as possible sent directly to the university.
If you have a dog which is a CONFIRMED CASE then please please we cannot develop a test without these markers. Just a small drop of your dogs blood could save hundreds of lives.
There is no guarantee of success but we have to try? also there are DNA tests available in other breeds so we are hopeful.
Together we can do it !!!!!
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Here is an email sent to me by professor Leeb and some links below to research in other breeds.
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Prof. Dr. Tosso Leeb
Institute of Genetics
University of Bern
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Dear Sonja,
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Thank you for your messages. Here is a very rough outline of our needs and plans:
Needs:
EDTA blood samples, pedigree and phenotype information (=affected or non-affected by cerebellar ataxia and retinal dysplasia). We need at least 5 cases and at least 20 controls. Complete families (offspring & both parents) are ideal, but we can also work with isolated unrelated animals.
Plans:
Depending on the samples that we will get, we will perform genome-wide association studies and/or linkage mapping to map the causative genetic defect to a defined position in the genome. We will additionally sequence the genome of one of the affected dogs and compare its genome to several hundred genomes of unaffected dogs. These experiments might reveal the causative genetic defect and enable the development of a genetic test. The research in our lab will need 6-12 months starting from the moment when we have a sufficient number of samples. There is no guarantee for success. The chances of success will largely depend on 2 factors:
(1) It is crucial that the phenotype information on each dog is correct and that there are no sample mix-ups
(2) The number of samples that we get; the more samples the higher the chances of success
further details of our approach from our scientific publications:
e.g.
· https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article…
