Unleashing the Canine Genome

In humans, common diseases show complex modes of inheritance and, as a result, have been largely refractory to genetic analysis. Rodent systems are more tractable genetically, but the mutations typically represent induced rather than naturally arising alleles, and results are often of limited direct relevance to human disease because of profound differences in physiology. By comparison, the physiology, disease presentation, and clinical response of dogs often mimic human diseases closely. In addition, the modern dog offers key advantages over other animal systems for mapping genes relevant to human disease. In the following discussion, we highlight some of these advantages and provide specific examples where canine genetics is best suited to solve difficult problems in human genetics. In particular, we focus on the strong promise of linkagedisequilibrium (LD) mapping in dogs.