Hip Dysplasia Research

From Linda Monroe

Received a call from Vet Gen at the University of Michigan yesterday. I had participated in their DNA research for hip dysplasia by sending in cheek swabs of dysplastic dogs, their parents, and passing siblings. I sent not only my own, or those I bred, but ran around to friends and got their dogs too!

They are in desperate need of more Mastiff samples and I am asking any of you out there that may have a dysplastic mastiff to please participate in this study. If they can develop a test to detect who will be dysplastic and who will not, we can test our litters at a young age and know way ahead of time. Wouldn't that be awesome?!!

To request the cheek swab, call Kim at Vet Gen, 1(800) 483-8436. She will send you the swabs with written directions on how to gather the cells as well as mailing instructions. Swabs can be sent in by regular mail so it will only cost you a $0.32 stamp to participate.

Basically what they need are family units if possible. For sure one parent and as many offspring as possible, but both parents are ideal. They also prefer permanent two year testing, but will take prelims on the offspring if they have the parents to go with them. The dogs need to be OFA=s for this study so they have a record of what the hips are supposed to be, passing or not, and all the samples will be on the same sheet of paper.

One parent and one dysplastic offspring will be accepted but the more relatives that are submitted the greater chance of them finding the right gene or genes.

They also need a pedigree of all dogs submitted. When I submitted mine, I labeled the pedigrees and OFA paperwork with a code such as A3, C6, etc., with the litters being a family group. This way everything could be matched up and hopefully not get mixed up. I also stapled everything together which worked out well for sealing the swab envelope even better so that id did not get contaminated with air and foreign matter.

Family Unit example:

Sire	A1	OFA good
Dam	A2	OFA fair
Son	A3	OFA good
Son	A4	OFA moderate
Daughter	A5	OFA severe

The samples sent to Vet Gen will be kept strictly confidential and will be used solely for the purpose of looking for the genes responsible for hip dysplasia.

Thank you in advance for your participation and thank you for helping to make DNA testing for hip dysplasia a very real possibility in the near future!!!

If I can help in any way, give a yell.
Linda Monroe
(210) 626-3158
mastiff@swbell.net