Genetic mapping of novel loci affecting canine blood phenotypes

Since the publication of the dog genome and the construction of high-quality genome- wide SNP arrays, thousands of dogs have been genotyped for disease studies. For many of these dogs, additional clinical phenotypes are available, such as hematological and clinical chemistry results collected during routine veterinary care. Little is known about the genetic basis of variation in blood phenotypes, but this variation may play an important role in the etiology and progression of many diseases. From a cohort of dogs that had been previously genotyped on a semi-custom Illumina CanineHD array for various genome-wide association studies (GWAS) at Cornell University Hospital for Animals, we chose 353 clinically healthy, adult dogs for our analysis of clinical pathologic test results (14 hematological tests and 25 clinical chemistry tests). After correcting for age, body weight and sex, genetic associations were identified for amylase, segmented neutrophils, urea nitrogen, glucose, and mean corp...自犬基因组测序成果发表、高质量全基因组单核苷酸多态性（SNP）芯片构建完成以来，已有数千只犬完成基因分型，用于疾病相关研究。针对其中多数受试犬只，还可获取其额外临床表型数据，例如常规兽医诊疗过程中采集的血液学指标与临床生化检测结果。目前学界对血液表型变异的遗传基础尚知之甚少，但此类变异或许在诸多疾病的病因学与病程进展中发挥关键作用。本研究从康奈尔大学动物医院既往针对各类全基因组关联分析（GWAS）采用半定制因美纳（Illumina）犬类高密度芯片（CanineHD array）完成基因分型的犬队列中，筛选出353只临床健康的成年犬，用于分析其临床病理检测结果（包含14项血液学检测与25项临床生化检测）。在校正年龄、体重与性别混杂因素后，研究人员成功鉴定出与淀粉酶、分叶中性粒细胞、尿素氮、葡萄糖以及平均红细胞[原文截断]相关的遗传关联。