Since our last update, the CGC Idiopathic Epilepsy (IE) project has had a great response to our call for samples. A huge thank you to everyone who has sent us swabs or completed our epilepsy questionnaire, especially those of you who have been organising big batches of cheek swab DNA collection kits!
We’re not finished yet: we are still collecting samples from affected dogs of any age and unaffected dogs aged 8 or older across the five breeds: Beagles, English Springer Spaniels, Giant Schnauzers, Hungarian Vizslas, and Irish Setters. However, the sample recruitment phase of our project will close at the end of June. If you’d like to contribute, now is the time to get in touch.
As we approach this deadline, we kindly ask that you use and return any swab kits you’ve received but not yet sent back. Likewise, if you have sent us swabs from a dog with epilepsy, please complete the online questionnaire and keep us updated with as much information as possible about your dog’s seizures.
Meanwhile, we have been working through our whole genome sequencing data analysis for our current five focus breeds. Once sample collection is complete, we will begin testing the genetic variants identified in our analysis in larger sets of cases and controls to help validate some of these findings.
Dr Sally Ricketts, who leads the CGC epilepsy team, said: “We’re so thankful to everyone who’s taken part. As you can see from the graph, four of the five breeds are now close to reaching our target of 200 dogs per breed – provided all the kits sent out are returned. Every sample is important in a study like this. If you’ve received a kit but haven’t yet returned it, please know that your sample could make a big difference to our efforts to tackle idiopathic epilepsy in dogs. In these final weeks as we approach the sample collection deadline, let’s see if we can paint more of the graph yellow!”
