Search for obesity markers by targeted sequencing of 32 dogs

Knowledge on the genetic predisposition to obesity development is far from total explanation. While investigating this issue, different approaches are used, including utilization of animal models. One of the species studied in connection with human disease (both monogenic and polygenic), is the dog. Dog obesity became an emerging and growing problem in last few years, nowadays concerning up to 20 % of the population. It is known taht certain breeds exhibit elevated predisposition to the development of obesity. It is also important to emphasize that heritability of BMI (body mass index) in human, as well as, fatness in farm animals is quite high, reaching approximately 0,5. Regarding the above facts, we hypothesize that between-breed variation in predisposition to obesity, as well as, inter-breed variability in terms of adipose tissue accumulatrion are probable driven by genetic mechanisms like DNA polymorphism or epigenetic modifications e.g. DNA methylation.Three regions covering together a region of 6.842 Mb were analyzed: on chromosome 2 (CFA2) fragment of 3,794Mb (CanFam3.1: 61,545,000-65,339,000); chromosome 8 (CFA8) fragment of 0,130Mb (CanFam3.1: 32,494,000-32,624,000) and chromosome 28 (CFA28) fragment of 2,918Mb (CanFam3.1: 31,740,000-34,658,000).