Osteosarcoma Gene Identified In Greyhounds

[Guest Vers]

Via Tripawd Blogs, with links to Dr. Couto's presentation at Solvang:

Osteosarcoma Gene Identified in Greyhounds

 

[Time4ANap]

Cool!

[a_daerr]

This is incredible news!

[sarabz]

The next question is "so what"? What are people going to do with this information? Will potential adoptees not take a dog with this gene?

 

Will breeders start breeding to avoid or, as with thoroughbred race horses, will they still breed for performance and d**m the potential later health issues (with horses, there are a couple of lines well known for bad feet/leg structure so that they can't race for long, but they're bringing in big money via breeding because they were fast as youngsters & earned lots of money before having to be retired).

 

That's great that it's been identified but what people do with the information is the critical piece.

[vjgrey]

That's great that it's been identified but what people do with the information is the critical piece.

 

Some kind of targeted gene therapy, I hope.

[silverfish]

I heard about this last year. Don't know why it's taken this long to get round!

 

Yeah, I reckon that it's going to be very difficult to stop breeders using fast dogs for breeding, so I'm guessing it's going to have be a requirement from the governing body that all potential breeding dogs must be tested and licensed. It's going to take a lot of work, and all to no particular benefit to the racing industry itself, so with the best will in the world it'll take a while.

[RaineysMom]

yup, breeders only care about money and will not stop using a fast dog just because it carries the gene, sadly. Hopefully it will help with the treatment/cure somehow.

[seeh2o]

Dr. Couto said (when I saw him in Solvang) that osteo seems to be linked to dogs who are from the faster lines of racers. He did not discuss specific names (of sires, I am guessing). He said he didn't know if the racing industry would work with him on this. He was very diplomatic about the whole thing.

 

I remember a thread here on GT some months ago that discussed, by name, sires who may be throwing dogs prone to osteo. I'm wondering if that thread was borne out of this research.

[dmdsmoxie]

yup, breeders only care about money and will not stop using a fast dog just because it carries the gene, sadly. Hopefully it will help with the treatment/cure somehow.

 

Since somehow this is becoming a bash the greyhound industry thread instead of celebrating a break through for dogs and humans maybe you can tell me which dog it is that is the start of this gene? I missed it in my reading.

 

If it starts with a leading sire from 50 years ago how do you propose to keep him out of future pedigrees.?

 

I'm excited about it because a friend of mine has osteo and whether this can help him or just prevent it in the future time will tell.

[greytpups]

Is there any info about testing? For example, are we going to be able to test our pups for the gene? Did Dr Couto mention anything because I can't be the only one who wants to know.

[RaineysMom]

Since somehow this is becoming a bash the greyhound industry thread instead of celebrating a break through for dogs and humans maybe you can tell me which dog it is that is the start of this gene? I missed it in my reading.

 

If it starts with a leading sire from 50 years ago how do you propose to keep him out of future pedigrees.?

 

I'm excited about it because a friend of mine has osteo and whether this can help him or just prevent it in the future time will tell.

sorry, not trying to bash. And I should say "some" and not assume all would. It may not even be from a dam or sire that long ago, too. If it turns out it's in a lot of the very prolific dogs (i.e. Gable Dodge, Molotov, etc.) that had thousands of offspring, it would probably be next to impossible to try to keep the genetic pool clean from now on.

 

However, I just can't imagine most breeders though really choosing to not breed a dog just because he has the gene if the lineage is a good one and he/she's a good racer, it's just not profitable -- and let's face it, most (and guessing all) are in it for the money.

 

and I am very happy and think this is great news -- especially if someday we can at least treat the disease better if not cure it. I'd give anything to get my Nube back.

[krissn333]

I think what's more likely is that better treatments will come from the discovery of this gene.

[NeylasMom]

Some kind of targeted gene therapy, I hope.

[Guest Vers]

I think what's more likely is that better treatments will come from the discovery of this gene.

 

This is my heartfelt hope as well. This news is only the first step, but there's hope that it can lead to better treatment or preventive gene therapy.

 

(In no way did I mean for this to be a post for discussion of breeding -- please refrain.)

Edited March 15, 2013 by Vers

[grey14me]

In the short term, if it's reasonably cheap to find out whether or not your pup has it, it might be worth knowing. If I knew that my dog had the gene, and say she/he had to have xrays taken for some unrelated reason, I would probably ask them to do the whole leg, as opposed to just one area. Or I might be extra cautious about my dog limping.

[Guest Wasserbuffel]

 

In the short term, if it's reasonably cheap to find out whether or not your pup has it, it might be worth knowing. If I knew that my dog had the gene, and say she/he had to have xrays taken for some unrelated reason, I would probably ask them to do the whole leg, as opposed to just one area. Or I might be extra cautious about my dog limping.

 

Exactly!

[Guest Liz_in_PA]

I think what's more likely is that better treatments will come from the discovery of this gene.

I read this as better treadmills.

I have to get better lighting in my brain.

[Guest grey_dreams]

The link to the summary didn't contain any information at all. I went to Dr. Couto's slideshow, and it says that they identified the GENES that are different in dogs with osteosarcoma. The slide show does not identify the genes, which is understandable considering that they will keep that info under wraps until it is actually published (also a general requirement of scientific journal publishing).

 

So, from Dr. Couto's presentation, it appears that there is a group of genes responsible. Any possible therapies to knock down the causative genes through targeted gene therapy will depend on which genes are responsible.

 

Quite a significant breakthrough.

[krissn333]

 

Hopefully this will give way to better therapies, maybe earlier detection, and someday prevention.

[Rickiesmom]

I think the potential for testing for markers and developing treatments is very exciting, and will apply not only to our hounds, but to people as well, making it doubly important.

[JJNg]

The little bits of information that have been released in this study have raised more questions than answers for me, and I'm waiting to see the actual published article before getting too excited about what it means. It definitely sounds like a promising start, but how practically useful this information will be is yet to be seen.

 

One statement in the study description really makes me wonder. The abstract includes the supposition that "all racers carried an OSA mutation on both chromosomes". If this is true, then there would be no way to breed away from OSA. But I'm wondering how they came to this conclusion in the first place. If if all racing greyhounds carry the genes for OSA, then what determines whether it develops or not, since obviously not all racing greyhounds get OSA?

[silverfish]

Since somehow this is becoming a bash the greyhound industry thread instead of celebrating a break through for dogs and humans maybe you can tell me which dog it is that is the start of this gene? I missed it in my reading.

 

If it starts with a leading sire from 50 years ago how do you propose to keep him out of future pedigrees.?

 

Oh no - not at all!! That's not how I meant it. However, it's a fact that breeding is going on now. This news is not going to affect anyone's choice of which dog is chosen as sire or which dog is chosen as dam. And it's going to be very hard - especially for the smaller breeders - to look at a super, winning dog that they have and decide not to breed him (and keep their heads above water financially) because he carries a gene which may cause problems in the years after his racing career.

 

I consider myself a moral and responsible person. I can't even park on double yellow lines, and yet I'd find that a difficult choice. I would do the right thing, but it would hurt.

 

So it's not so much a bash at the racing industry (I don't think you have ever seen me do that, have you?) as an acknowledgement of human frailty.

 

As to keeping a problem sire out of the lines from way back. Genetics is a complex thing, but it may well be possible, by choosing carefully, to extinguish the expression of a gene or genes. And then, eventually, the factors become more and more diluted and less and less likely to be expressed. I'm not an expert, so I'm not putting that well.

 

I read this as better treadmills.

I have to get better lighting in my brain.

 

I do that all the time!

 

The link to the summary didn't contain any information at all. I went to Dr. Couto's slideshow, and it says that they identified the GENES that are different in dogs with osteosarcoma. The slide show does not identify the genes, which is understandable considering that they will keep that info under wraps until it is actually published (also a general requirement of scientific journal publishing).

 

This is probably why what I heard last year didn't get out. I've been thinking about where it was I read it and I think it was in an email from Great Ormond Street children's hospital, because there's some kind of research cooperation going on, because osteosarcoma is almost identical in children and animals and they can easily adapt treatments. I can't find the original article (naturally ) but here's another one which shows what I'm talking about - and this dates back to 2011.

 

I think the potential for testing for markers and developing treatments is very exciting, and will apply not only to our hounds, but to people as well, making it doubly important.

 

Exactly. See above!

 

 

One statement in the study description really makes me wonder. The abstract includes the supposition that "all racers carried an OSA mutation on both chromosomes". If this is true, then there would be no way to breed away from OSA. But I'm wondering how they came to this conclusion in the first place. If if all racing greyhounds carry the genes for OSA, then what determines whether it develops or not, since obviously not all racing greyhounds get OSA?

 

I don't think they actually said that they do, I think there was an 'if' in there somewhere. And surely, genetics being the complex thing that it is, it's a matter of combinations, of which there are potentially millions - or more. Maths not being my strong point!

 

But here's an interesting thought which might well be relevant: here in England we have nothing like the incidence of osteosarcoma in greyhounds that you do in the US. Sure, it happens, and I do know people who've lost a greyhound to osteosarcoma, but according to a vet I asked once, it doesn't occur any more often in racing greyhounds here than in any other large, long-boned dog. So, theoretically, we have a 'cleaner' gene pool, which may be something that will turn out to be useful in the future.

[JJNg]

Interesting that OSA has a lower incidence in England. I wonder if they included any British racers in the study. Might help distinguish the differences, which could be genetic but could even be associated with outside environmental factors.

[silverfish]

Interesting that OSA has a lower incidence in England. I wonder if they included any British racers in the study. Might help distinguish the differences, which could be genetic but could even be associated with outside environmental factors.

 

Well, there are dogs from the UK in the US, so probably yes (most will be Irish, not English, but the difference is academic since most dogs in England are actually Irish). The problem is that those dogs might be the very ones responsible for spreading the affected genes, so a study would need to be done with a representative sample of UK and Irish dogs, I think.

[joejoesmom]

As Silverfish said, this result was announced last year in a joint news release with Dr. Couto and Dr. Carlos Alvarez at the Nationwide Children's Hospital (both here in Columbus). I posted about it in July:

 

http://forum.greytalk.com/index.php/topic/288073-news-from-osu-regarding-osteo-genetics/

 

Unfortunately, the article at the Children's Hospital website is no longer available. I know that Dr. Alvarez was very excited at the possibility of using targeted gene therapy on children's bone cancer. Since greyhounds are such a good model for osteo in children, the likelihood is that it would be developed and used on greyhounds too. Of course this is all long term stuff.

 

"However, despite significant effort, classical genetic approaches have not identified any Greyhound variant that accounts for most OSA cases in that breed. Dr. Alvarez proposes that Greyhound OSA variants have been directly or indirectly selected for in racing performance, consistent with the vastly elevated incidence in racing vs. show Greyhounds. If this is true and all racers carried an OSA mutation on both chromosomes, then this could not be detected using classical approaches (which require different genetic markers to distinguish cases v. controls). Here Dr. Alvarez proposes an innovative genetic approach that is impervious to the limitations described above, and enables genome-wide discovery of Greyhound variation with large effects on OSA risk."

 

This is from the abstract for the study. Note that it doesn't say that all racers carry an OSA mutation on both chromosomes -- just that this would explain why "classical genetic approaches" have not identified the mutation. I have no clue if the results indicate this mutation on both chromosomes.

 

Some history: Based on a large survey (not an actual study), Dr. Couto noted that retired racing greyhounds from US stock had a significantly higher rate of osteo than racing greyhounds from Irish stock, galgos, and AKC greyhounds. He also noted that this was independent of the US greyhound's racing history. In other words, even if a US racing greyhound never raced, he/she still had as likely a chance at developing osteo as one who did race. From this he surmised that studying the genome of the US Racer and comparing it to the AKC greyhound, the galgo, and the Irish stock might result in identifying a genetic marker for the disease. This in turn could lead to more effective treatments in both children and dogs. So this is what led up to the funding of this study. I believe that they ended up using US racing greyhounds, AKC greyhounds, galgos and deerhounds for the study.

 

Jane

Edited March 18, 2013 by joejoesmom