Physiological characterization of ocular melanosis-affected canine melanocytes

Clinicopathologic profiles of canine ocular melanosis: A comparative study between cairn terriers and non-cairn terriers

OBJECTIVES

To identify canine breeds at risk for ocular melanosis and to compare the clinical and histologic features between affected Cairn Terriers (CTs) and non-Cairn Terriers (NCTs).

DESIGN

Relative risk (RR) analysis and retrospective cohort study of dogs histologically diagnosed with ocular melanosis.

PROCEDURES

The COPLOW archive was searched for globe submissions diagnosed with ocular melanosis. Six hundred fifty globes were included, and RR analysis was performed to identify at-risk NCT breeds. A cohort of 360 CT and NCT globes diagnosed from 2013 to 2023 were included in the retrospective cohort study. Clinical data were collected from submission forms, medical records, and follow-up surveys. One hundred fifty-seven submissions underwent masked histologic review. Immunohistochemical staining for CD204 was performed to determine the predominance of melanophages in affected uvea from five NCTs.

RESULTS

At-risk NCT breeds included the Boxer, Labrador Retriever, and French Bulldog. Glaucoma was the reported reason for enucleation in 79.4% of submissions. At enucleation, clinical features less prevalent in NCTs than CTs included pigmentary abnormalities in the contralateral eye (33.7% vs. 63.1%, p = .0008) and abnormal episcleral/scleral pigmentation in the enucleated globe (25.4% vs. 53.6%, p = .0008). Histologic involvement of the episclera was also less frequent in NCTs than in CTs (39.7% vs. 76.9%, p = .008). Concurrent melanocytic neoplasms arising in melanosis were more common in NCTs (24.4%) than CTs (3.9%). Melanophages were not predominant in any samples evaluated immunohistochemically.

CONCLUSIONS

Several popular NCT breeds carry risk for ocular melanosis, and some clinicopathologic disease features may differ from those described in CTs.

Genome-wide methylation patterns from canine nanopore assemblies

Recent advances in long-read sequencing have enabled the creation of reference-quality genome assemblies for multiple individuals within a species. In particular, 8 long-read genome assemblies have recently been published for the canine model (dogs and wolves). These assemblies were created using a range of sequencing and computational approaches, with only limited comparisons described among subsets of the assemblies. Here we present 3 high-quality de novo reference assemblies based upon Oxford Nanopore long-read sequencing: 2 Bernese Mountain Dogs (BD & OD) and a Cairn terrier (CA611). These breeds are of particular interest due to the enrichment of unresolved genetic disorders. Leveraging advancement in software technologies, we utilized published data of Labrador Retriever (Yella) to generate a new assembly, resulting in a ∼280-fold increase in continuity (N50 size of 91 kbp vs 25.75 Mbp). In conjunction with these 4 new assemblies, we uniformly assessed 8 existing assemblies for generalized quality metrics, sequence divergence, and a detailed BUSCO assessment. We identified a set of ∼400 conserved genes during the BUSCO analysis missing in all assemblies. Genome-wide methylation profiles were generated from the nanopore sequencing, resulting in broad concordance with existing whole-genome and reduced-representation bisulfite sequencing, while highlighting superior overage of mobile elements. These analyses demonstrate the ability of Nanopore sequencing to resolve the sequence and epigenetic profile of canine genomes.