University of Utah
Histocompatibility Alleles Conferring Susceptibility to Canine Diabetes, Immune-Mediated Thyroiditis and Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia

Click Here for Consent Form for U of Utah Project Only

The PBGVCA is excited about sponsoring and the PBGV Health and Rescue Foundation is pleased to be funding Canine Health Foundation Grant #305. The formal name of the study is "Histocompatibility Alleles Conferring Susceptibility to Canine Diabetes, Immune-Mediated Thyroiditis and Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia". The research is being done at the University of Utah by Dr Wayne Potts.

What does this mean to us?
The following is the Lay Abstract for this study. “Autoimmune diseases cause significant amounts of mortality and debilitating diseases in dogs. In humans, many autoimmune diseases occur only in individuals expressing one of the few predisposing histocompatibility genes (common genetic profile/gene(s)). For example, all cases of type I diabetes in humans are associated with only a few of the many allelic forms of class II histocompatibility genes. Consequently, if the frequencies of these few alleles were reduced by half, the incidence of diabetes would be reduced by half. Here we propose to characterize histocompatibility susceptibility alleles (common genetic profile/gene(s)) for three major, heritable canine autoimmune diseases-diabetes, immune-mediated thyroiditis, and immune-mediated hemolytic anemia. If any of these three debilitating (or lethal) autoimmune diseases have a restricted number of susceptibility alleles it will allow (1) development of diagnostic tests for identifying individuals at risk for prophylactic therapy and research and (2) reducing the incidence of the disease by reducing the breeding of individuals carrying the predisposing histocompatibility alleles. For each of the three autoimmune diseases, we propose to collect DNA samples from approximately 100 purebred dogs diagnosed with the disease. Histocompatibility genes will be cloned and sequenced for each dog for a total of approximately 1100 sequences. Histocompatibility alleles (common genetic profile/gene(s)) will be tested for significant associations with each disease.”

Why should we participate?
We know from our last health survey that hypothyroidism is our #2 most common disease thought to be genetic in origin, behind persistent pupillary membranes (PPM’s). We also are aware of individual PBGV’s affected with immune mediated hemolytic anemia and also diabetes. The benefit of this study is that the genetic profile of affected dogs is presumed to be similar and researchers are attempting to validate this. If proven, next steps will be to find a specific genetic marker and then testing procedures. In studies such as this it often takes many, many years to identify a profile. This may be one area where the work will be fruitful fairly quickly. While the diseases to be studied are those stated, other of the numerous probable autoimmune diseases include immune mediated meningitis, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and allergies. These diseases have huge consequences to the lives of affected dogs, expense to their owners, and long-term impact on the breed as a whole.

What can we do to participate?
Here is our chance to help our breed. The University of Utah is asking for cheek swabs on any PBGV affected with any of these three autoimmune diseases:

If you have a PBGV that has been diagnosed with any of these three diseases, please download the consent form for each affected dog you may have. Once you have the form completed and signed by your veterinarian, please send it to either Jeanne Dumestre at jdumes@yahoo.com, Shelley Barclay at shelbar@aol.com, or Kathy Zavodjancik at PBGVLVR@aol.com. Please contact one of these ladies and let them know you have a completed form and to send them and they will send you their mailing address. They will in turn send the forms to the University of Utah and the University will send you cheek swab kit. The cheek swab will come with instructions for you to obtain a sample and when completed you will mail the swab back to the University of Utah.

The information on specific dogs will not be shared with anyone other than the researchers at the University. The University is hoping to have the swabs come in 'in bunches' so that groups can be processed together, thus the reason for including Jeanne, Shelley and Kathy as ' middle women'.

Please do participate!! Without your help we will lose the opportunity to learn something about our breed. If you have questions of a technical nature, please contact Lauren Kovaleff at LKova@comcast.net.

Thank you in advance for working to control these diseases in our beloved PBGV’s.

Lauren Kovaleff and Julia Kuni
PBGVCA Co-Managers Health and Genetics Committee