Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences, Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, College Station, TX, USA.
Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
Nature. 2022 Feb;602(7895):51-57. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-04282-9. Epub 2022 Feb 2.
The Dog Aging Project is a long-term longitudinal study of ageing in tens of thousands of companion dogs. The domestic dog is among the most variable mammal species in terms of morphology, behaviour, risk of age-related disease and life expectancy. Given that dogs share the human environment and have a sophisticated healthcare system but are much shorter-lived than people, they offer a unique opportunity to identify the genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors associated with healthy lifespan. To take advantage of this opportunity, the Dog Aging Project will collect extensive survey data, environmental information, electronic veterinary medical records, genome-wide sequence information, clinicopathology and molecular phenotypes derived from blood cells, plasma and faecal samples. Here, we describe the specific goals and design of the Dog Aging Project and discuss the potential for this open-data, community science study to greatly enhance understanding of ageing in a genetically variable, socially relevant species living in a complex environment.
《犬类衰老计划》是一项针对数万只伴侣犬衰老问题的长期纵向研究。在形态学、行为、与年龄相关疾病的风险和预期寿命方面，家犬是最具变异性的哺乳动物物种之一。鉴于狗与人类环境共享，并且拥有复杂的医疗保健系统，但寿命却比人类短得多，它们为确定与健康寿命相关的遗传、环境和生活方式因素提供了独特的机会。为了利用这一机会，《犬类衰老计划》将收集广泛的调查数据、环境信息、电子兽医记录、全基因组序列信息、来自血细胞、血浆和粪便样本的临床病理学和分子表型。在这里，我们描述了《犬类衰老计划》的具体目标和设计，并讨论了这项开放数据、社区科学研究在增强对生活在复杂环境中的遗传变异性社会相关物种衰老的理解方面的潜力。
