Dog Epilepsy Gene Discovery Could Aid People-Study
Thu Jan 6, 2005 03:11 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A gene that causes a rare but severe form of
epilepsy in people is also found in highly bred dogs, which could lead
to new ways to treat the condition, an international team of
researchers said on Thursday. Dr. Berge Minassian of the Hospital for
Sick Children in Toronto, Canada and colleagues in the United States,
France and Britain found the gene in purebred dachsunds, and were able
to breed it out of them.
Writing in the journal Science, they said they hoped their findings
could lead to treatments for epilepsy in people.
“Epilepsy afflicts 1 percent of humans and 5 percent of dogs,” they
wrote.
“More than 5 percent of purebred miniature wire-haireddachshunds in
the United Kingdom suffer an autosomal recessive progressive myoclonic
epilepsy, which we show to be Lafora disease, the severest form of
teenage-onset epilepsy in humans.”
In dogs, the disease was much less severe than in humans.
The dachshunds with Lafora disease had a mutation in the EPM2B gene
that prevents the gene from functioning. It takes two faulty copies of
the gene, one from each parent, to cause epilepsy.
The mutation was found across dogs but not in close dog relatives such
as bears, raccoons or skunks, the researchers said. Cats also lack the
mutation.
They said their study at the very least showed that dogs can be used
to study the epilepsy and to look for better treatments.
In 2003 Minassian’s team found the EPM2B gene was associated with
Lafora disease. A closely related gene called EPM2A can also cause the
epilepsy, which causes seizures and progressive brain damage and kills
within about 10 years.
© Reuters 2005