A severe muscular dystrophy occurs in the Landseer breed. The disease is inherited as a monogenic autosomal recessive trait. Affected puppies show progressive muscle weakness starting at an age of 8-12 weeks. The disease leads to the degeneration of all skeletal muscles and affected dogs have to be euthanized between 6-18 months of age. We identified the molecular genetic defect leading to this muscular dystrophy and developed a genetic test.
The genetic test, which allows the unquivocal diagnosis of carrier animals is offered by several commercial testing laboratories.
