<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Obesity is a serious problem in numerous dog breeds, but knowledge of its hereditary background is scarce. On the contrary, numerous DNA polymorphisms associated with human obesity have been identified, with the strongest effect being demonstrated for <italic>FTO</italic> gene. We used targeted next-generation sequencing (tNGS) to search for polymorphisms in the region harboring <italic>FTO</italic> and <italic>IRX3</italic> in 32 Labrador dogs. Moreover, we investigated the selected regions of <italic>FTO</italic> and <italic>IRX3</italic>, orthologous to the human regions associated with obesity, in 165 Labradors. For all dogs, the following information was available: age, sex, gonadal status, body weight, and body conformation score (BCS). The use of tNGS revealed 12,217 polymorphisms, but none of these obtained significance when lean and obese dogs were compared. Study of two SNPs in the 5’-flanking region of <italic>FTO</italic> in 165 dogs – creating two upstream reading frames (uORFs) – also showed no association with body weight and BCS but suggested the need for improvement in <italic>FTO</italic> annotation. No polymorphism was found in the 5’UTR of <italic>IRX3.</italic> Additionally, no differences of CpG islands methylation status between lean and obese dogs were found. Our study suggests that <italic>FTO</italic> and <italic>IRX3</italic> are not useful markers of obesity in Labrador dogs.</p></abstract>

Obesity is a serious problem in numerous dog breeds, but knowledge of its hereditary background is scarce. On the contrary, numerous DNA polymorphisms associated with human obesity have been identified, with the strongest effect being demonstrated for FTO gene. We used targeted next-generation sequencing (tNGS) to search for polymorphisms in the region harboring FTO and IRX3 in 32 Labrador dogs. Moreover, we investigated the selected regions of FTO and IRX3, orthologous to the human regions associated with obesity, in 165 Labradors. For all dogs, the following information was available: age, sex, gonadal status, body weight, and body conformation score (BCS). The use of tNGS revealed 12,217 polymorphisms, but none of these obtained significance when lean and obese dogs were compared. Study of two SNPs in the 5’-flanking region of FTO in 165 dogs – creating two upstream reading frames (uORFs) – also showed no association with body weight and BCS but suggested the need for improvement in FTO annotation. No polymorphism was found in the 5’UTR of IRX3. Additionally, no differences of CpG islands methylation status between lean and obese dogs were found. Our study suggests that FTO and IRX3 are not useful markers of obesity in Labrador dogs.

<italic>FTO</italic> and <italic>IRX3</italic> Genes are Not Promising Markers for Obesity in Labrador Retriever Dogs

Department of Genetics and Animal Breeding

University Centre for Veterinary Medicine, Poznan University of Life Sciences

Department of Internal Medicine and Veterinary Diagnostics

Annals of Animal Science

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

 and  Genes are Not Promising Markers for Obesity in Labrador Retriever Dogs

Obesity is a serious problem in numerous dog breeds, but knowledge of its hereditary background is scarce. On the contrary, numerous DNA polymorphisms...

FTO and IRX3 Genes are Not Promising Markers for Obesity in Labrador Retriever Dogs

Published Online: May 02, 2019

Page range: 343 - 357

Received: Nov 22, 2018

Accepted: Jan 17, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/aoas-2019-0004

Keywords
dog, obesity, DNA methylation,

© 2019 Adrian Grzemski et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

FTO and IRX3 Genes are Not Promising Markers for Obesity in Labrador Retriever Dogs

Published Online: May 02, 2019

Page range: 343 - 357

Received: Nov 22, 2018

Accepted: Jan 17, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/aoas-2019-0004

Keywordsdog, obesity, DNA methylation,

© 2019 Adrian Grzemski et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
dog, obesity, DNA methylation,