European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 9, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 12 stars and stripes monday april 9 2007 big will that Puppy its All in the by Randolph e Schmo the associated press Washington from the towering great Dane to the feisty Little Chihuahua All dogs Are Brothers under the skin now re searchers have uncovered a Rea son Why the animals wearing that skin vary so much in size dogs have the largest variation in body size of any land animal so researchers led by Elaine a Ostrander of the National human genome research Institute decided to look into the reasons Why their findings Are reported in fridays Issue of the journal Sci ence learning How growth is con trolled can improve the under standing of cancer and other Dis eases caused by growth gone awry Ostrander said and the research adds to the Basic study of variations perhaps improving knowledge of the differences Between people she added k Gordon Lark of the University of Utah a coauthor of the re port pointed out that dogs have 200 to 300 diseases in common with people including High blood pressure autoimmune diseases and cancer they also share our Environ ment so if there is an Environ mental influence that can trigger disease dogs will be going through the same process he said in a Telephone interview so if we can solve this in dogs that a fantastic jump ahead Lark said Keith e Murphy principal investigator at the canine genetics Laboratory of Texas univer sity said what youve got Here is the first piece of that Puzzle thais very important and youre looking at almost a sort of Cascade effect if you will and we would Hope that these findings maybe you can extend to diseases maybe even cancer said Mur Phy who was not part of the re search team larks portuguese water dog Georgie had died and he was seeking a new one hearing he was a geneticist the breeder urged him to work on dog genes so he began the Georgie project studying the genes of the Portu Guese water dog a Breed that comes in a wide Range of sizes from 25 pounds to 75 pounds Ostrander and colleagues then extended that to a Range of Large and Small Breeds and the re searchers located a Section of Dan that varied Between Large and Small Breeds in most cases known As a regulatory sequence the difference is on dog chromosome 15 next to a previously known Gene named igf1 for insulin like growth Factor 1 the hormone controlled by the igf1 Gene helps mammals including from birth to adolescence in Small dog Breeds a mutation in the sequence next to the Gene kept them from growing larger the researchers said we know this is Only part of the Story but its a necessary part of the Story said Ostrander who noted there were some exceptions with the Small dog sequence appearing in larger dogs other yet unidentified genetic factors cause the exceptions said Kevin Chase of the University of Utah another coauthor Overall 21 researchers studied 3241 dogs from 143 Breeds rang ing from Bichon Frise Chihuahua maltese pomeranian toy poodle pug and pekingese to Saint Ber Nard Newfoundland mastiff great Dane Irish wolfhound and Standard poodle dogs Are descended from wolves having been domesticated 12000 to 15000 years ago selective Breeding has produced the Many different types of dogs that exist today Deanne Fitzmaurice a Gene sequence determines whether dogs will be More like Gibson a great Dane right or Zoie a Chihuahua file View delete reply reply ail Forward print from l Westey authors pay i a Oitt out of office Auto reply currently patrolling of me Southern coast of Oahu unfortunately lit be Back on monday