The cataract represents one of the most common causes for blindness in dogs. This disease leads to a partial or a totally clouding of the lens in the eye. Relative common for old animals, there is also a congenital form that occurs occasionally in young animals. This hereditary cataract is already described in around 100 different dog breeds.
The age of onset, the localisation on the lens and the severity of the disease are variable and relatively specific to the different breeds. At the genetic level, several inheritance patterns are already known: autosomal recessive or dominant. While several genes leading to cataract are already known in human, only a few, such as HSF4 or SCFD2, are known in dogs.
With the collaboration of the Swiss Newfoundland Dog Club, the Institute for Genetics of the University of Bern would like to investigate the genetic origin of cataract in this dog breed. For that, we are looking for Newfoundland dogs affected by hereditary cataract and all their related parents (full or half siblings, parents, offspring).
Unaffected animals with or without related affected dogs are also welcome.
