Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran.
Department of Surgical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
Vet J. 2024 Dec;308:106251. doi: 10.1016/j.tvjl.2024.106251. Epub 2024 Oct 4.
Dogs exhibit remarkable phenotypic diversity, particularly in behavioral traits, making them an excellent model for studying the genetic basis of complex behaviors. Behavioral traits such as aggression and fear are highly heritable among different dog breeds, but their genetic basis is largely unknown. We used the genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify candidate genes associated with nine behavioral traits including; stranger-directed aggression (SDA), owner-directed aggression (ODA), dog-directed aggression (DDA), stranger-directed fear (SDF), nonsocial fear (NF), dog-directed fear (DDF), touch sensitivity (TS), separation-related behavior (SRB) and attachment attention-seeking (AAS). The observed behavioral traits were collected from 38,714 to 40,460 individuals across 108 modern dog breeds. We performed a GWAS based on a latent trait extracted using the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) method with nine observable behavioral traits and compared the results with those from the GWAS of the observed traits. Using both observed-trait and latent-trait GWAS, we identified 41 significant SNPs that were common between both GWAS methods, of which 26 were pleiotropic, as well as 10 SNPs unique to the latent-trait GWAS, and 5 SNPs unique to the observed-trait GWAS discovered. These SNPs were associated with 21 genes in latent-trait GWAS and 22 genes in the observed-trait GWAS, with 19 genes shared by both. According to previous studies, some of the genes from this study have been reported to be related to behavioral and neurological functions in dogs. In the human population, these identified genes play a role in either the formation of the nervous system or are linked to various mental health conditions. Taken together, our findings suggest that latent-trait GWAS for behavioral traits in dogs identifies significant latent genes that are neurologically prioritized.
狗表现出显著的表型多样性，特别是在行为特征方面，这使它们成为研究复杂行为遗传基础的绝佳模型。不同犬种之间的攻击性和恐惧等行为特征具有高度遗传性，但它们的遗传基础在很大程度上尚不清楚。我们使用全基因组关联研究（GWAS）来鉴定与九种行为特征相关的候选基因，这些行为特征包括：对陌生人的攻击性（SDA）、对主人的攻击性（ODA）、对狗的攻击性（DDA）、对陌生人的恐惧（SDF）、非社交恐惧（NF）、对狗的恐惧（DDF）、触觉敏感性（TS）、与分离相关的行为（SRB）和依恋寻求关注（AAS）。观察到的行为特征是从 108 个现代犬种的 38714 到 40460 个人中收集的。我们使用基于验证性因素分析（CFA）方法提取的潜在特征进行 GWAS，该方法使用九个可观察的行为特征，并将结果与观察特征的 GWAS 进行比较。使用观察特征和潜在特征 GWAS，我们确定了 41 个在两种 GWAS 方法中都显著的 SNP，其中 26 个是多效性的，10 个 SNP 是潜在特征 GWAS 特有的，5 个 SNP 是观察特征 GWAS 特有的。这些 SNP 与潜在特征 GWAS 中的 21 个基因和观察特征 GWAS 中的 22 个基因相关，其中 19 个基因在两个 GWAS 中都有。根据之前的研究，这项研究中的一些基因已被报道与狗的行为和神经功能有关。在人类中，这些已鉴定的基因在神经系统的形成中发挥作用，或者与各种心理健康状况有关。总之，我们的研究结果表明，狗的行为特征的潜在特征 GWAS 确定了具有神经优先性的显著潜在基因。
