Data from: 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
corpuscular hemoglobin. Additionally, a strong genetic association (P =
8.1×10-13) was evident between a region of canine chromosome 13 (CFA13)
and alanine aminotransferase (ALT), explaining 23% of the variation in ALT
levels. This region of CFA13 encompasses the GPT gene that encodes the
transferase. Dogs homozygous for the derived allele exhibit lower ALT
activity, making increased ALT activity a less useful marker of hepatic
injury in these individuals. Overall, these associations provide a roadmap
for identifying causal variants that could improve interpretation of
clinical blood tests and understanding of genetic risk factors associated
with diseases such as canine diabetes and anemia, and demonstrate the
utility of holistic phenotyping of dogs genotyped for disease mapping
studies.