Abstract:
Genome wide association Studies (GWAS) are an efficient approach to estimate the
candidate risk loci associated with complex diseases. Juvenile onset of canine
demodicosis is a common inflammatory disease of the skin of dogs. It is severely
invasive and even fatal in some cases. Suppression of immune response as an underlying
cause of infestation of demodicosis is well established. Genetic causes of the disease are
yet unknown. Therefore, this thesis focuses on identifying the candidate single nucleotide
polymorphic risk loci associated with juvenile onset of canine demodicosis through
GWAS. Ten candidate SNPs were successfully identified to be significantly associated
with the disease in a discovery phase. All these SNPs are located in intergenic region on
chromosome 28. Literature search showed that all four genes neighboring these
significant SNPs are directly or indirectly involved in inflammatory related diseases and
with skin and immune system as related phenotypes in other species like humans.
Therefore, we suggest that these genes might be good candidates for future research, to
identify the causal genetic abnormalities of the disease. In further applications, this study
can provide new dimensions in diagnostic and treatment domains related to demodicosis
in dogs and once established in dogs as model organism, it can further be extended to
benefit humans.
