How Dog Genes May Help the Blind See
Oct. 15 -- Long before Shadow the poodle attained fame for becoming the first dog to be genetically mapped, a shaggy briard named Lancelot had already been shaking paws with lawmakers in Washington.
Since 2001, Lancelot has been a living model of how vision can be restored to the blind, and the gene therapy treatment that gave the briard sight is currently being vetted for human trials. But now that scientists have Shadow's mapped genome as a tool for finding new genes, there may be more medical miracles like Lancelot to come.
"Many genetic diseases in dogs resemble human diseases and probably share the same genes," said Ewen Kirkness, the leader of the team at the Center for Advancement of Genomics in Rockville, Md., that decoded Shadow's genes. "This will make the hunt for those genes easier."
Blind Dogs See
Kirkness' work showed that dogs share about 18,000 of some 24,000 clearly identified human genes and they host about 360 of the same genetic disorders that are known in humans. He explains that researchers can use the rough draft of Shadow's genes to zero in on regions where problematic genes are located.
Tracing genes in dogs is made even easier by the fact that dog breeders have kept decades worth of genetic histories for many breeds.
Kirkness says all these factors will help accelerate research. In fact, they already have.
Case in point: Lancelot. The briard and his two siblings were born in 2000 with a hereditary blindness condition known as Leber's disease. The puppies constantly smacked into furniture and huddled in corners.
By studying the dogs' genes, researchers were able to pinpoint the genetic source of their blindness. To treat Lancelot and his brother and sister, researchers injected a virus containing corrected copies of the gene into the dogs' retinas.
Within 90 days, Lancelot and his siblings showed signs of sight. Researchers chose Lancelot as the "public face" of the experiment since his sister reportedly has a testy temperament and the third pup in the group was reportedly euthanized to obtain more data.
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