Analysis of MHC class II and monogenic eye diseases in the Scandinavian wolf population

• Main Author: Marby, Davida
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English; Swedish
• Published: SLU/Dept. of Animal Breeding and Genetics 2011
• Subjects: MHC class II; DLA; PRA; PLL; Canis lupus
• Online Access: https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/5459/

ABSTRACT. In the late 1960’s all the wolves in Scandinavia went extinct in the wild due to extensive hunting. In 1983 two new wolves immigrated and founded, together with a third immigrant in 1991, the population that exists today. Due to the fact that the population originates from less than a handful of individuals, the genetic variation is small. Between the years 1973 and 2011, 23 wolves of the wolves that have been sampled for blood and tissue were used in this study. A hereditary form of blindness without a known genetic etiology has been reported among captive wolves in Sweden. In an attempt to find the disease-causing gene, the study population of wolves were analyzed for presence of disease-causing muta-tions in the following monogenic eye diseases; Gr_PRA1, Type-A PRA, Cord1, Prcd-PRA and PLL. The analysis of eye diseases was performed with either real time PCR (TaqMan) or capillary electrophoresis (ABIPrism 3100). To gain further understanding about the ge-netic complexity and degree of genetic variation in the Scandinavian wolf population, the wolves were also sampled and sequenced for their genetic variation in the MHC class II loci (DLA-DRB1, DLA,DQA1 and DLA-DQB1). In the monogenic eye tests all wolves tested normal, but this does not exclude the possibility that individuals in the population carry another mutation causing blindness. In MHC class II, eight haplotypes were found including eight DRB1, six DQA1 and seven DQB1 alleles. Compared to a common dog breed the Scandinavian wolf population has about half the MHC variation. Because of the lack of genetic variation, license hunting should be abandoned in favor of careful testing of genetic variation, and depending on the result, cautious selection of what animals to eu-thanize. SAMMANFATTNING. I slutet av sextiotalet utrotades alla vargar i Skandinavien på grund av omfattande jakt. 1983 immigrerade två vargar till Sverige och grundlade tillsammans med ytterligare en immigrant år 1991 den vargpopulation som finns idag. Eftersom populationen ...