Man’s New Best Friend: What Cats Can Teach Us About Human Genetics and Precision Medicine

Although cats have lived together with humans for millennia, it remains a dogs world. This predisposition has traditionally bled right into science also. It is time for cats to get their day, suggests veterinary medicine expert Leslie Lyons in a Forum published July 28 in the journal Trends in Genetics. Cats, she says, have the prospective to be a beneficial model organism for geneticists, as the feline genome is ordered likewise to human beings.

” Using cats in research is truly ignored because people do not realize the advantages,” states Lyons of the Department of Veterinary Medicine & Surgery at the University of Missouri. “The dog or mouse genome have reorganized chromosomes that are rather unlike than people, but the domestic cat has genes that are nearly the same dimension as human beings, in addition to a genome that, as human beings, is arranged and preserved.”

Lyons writes that cats could be a tool for helping scientists better figure out our genetic “dark matter.” Although making up 95% of our DNA, it has long been considered filler information of little to no effects. Around 10% of the noncoding areas within the genome’s dark matter are preserved throughout mammals, implying that it has an important, misconstrued function. Cats have been found to have genetic diseases connected to dysfunction of their genetic dark matter, making them a prospective model organism for this kind of study.

” As we uncover that perhaps animals have a lot more identical spacing between genes and the genes are in the same order, perhaps that will certainly aid us to decode what is happening with people,” Lyons says. “Working with a primate is on the costly side, but a cat’s affordability, as well as agreeable nature, make them one of the most viable animals to work with to recognize the human genome.”

An additional reason cats could enlighten the human genome is that we have the technology to clone cats and make transgenic cats. The first cat clone, Cc, short for CopyCat, was produced in 2001. Her cell donator was a regular calico cat with black, orange, and white hair. However, Cc did not end up having any orange on her layer, opposing Mendel’s laws and various other fundamental genetic principles. This hinted that something was taking place in Cc’s genes that scientists are just now recognizing.

Cats can additionally play a role in precision medicine for genetic diseases, in which, as opposed to treating the symptoms, researchers repair the actual gene and what the gene does. For instance, certain types of cats are prone to the genetic disease polycystic kidney disease, which also afflicts people. Lyons writes that if we could treat this condition with precision medicine in cats, we might use those understandings.

” So, if you and your cat stroll in the veterinarian’s door as well as there is not an injury, there is not a feeding issue, there could be a genetic issue with the cat. Vets could sequence the genes and potentially quicker locate the root cause of what is occurring and after that create a treatment that is better than just dealing with the symptoms,” Lyons says. “We can supply a more tailored healthcare program for our pets, as well as extra financing would certainly place all the different items into place.”

Originally published on Sciencedaily.com. Read the original article.

References: Leslie A. Lyons. Cats – telomere to telomere and nose to tail. Trends in Genetics, 2021; DOI: 10.1016/j.tig.2021.06.001