Vanda researchers compared the degree of genetic inbreeding in Beagle dogs using the measure of Runs of Homozygosity (ROH). This analysis identifies contiguous regions of the genome that are inherited as identical from both parents. The study showed that unrelated humans show these regions of homozygosity in about 1/1000 of their genomes, while Beagle dogs do so in 12.8 percent of their genome.
This means that Beagle dogs are on average 100 times more inbred than humans. In the same study, Vanda researchers examined the degree of inbreeding in the genetic isolate of the Amish in
Beagle dogs are routinely used for studying the safety of new pharmaceuticals. This practice has been in place for one hundred years and is still followed today by both pharmaceutical developers and regulators. The present study is significant and casts substantial doubt over the predictive validity of these commonly conducted dog studies. The high degree of inbreeding seen would suggest that the use of Beagle dogs is a poor model to predict toxicity even for other dog breeds and an inappropriate model to do so for humans. Therefore, Beagle dogs should be regarded as an inadequate model species for predicting drug safety in humans.
The results of this study should caution against the routine use of dogs in human drug toxicology studies. Instead, these results should encourage researchers and regulators to adopt appropriate and relevant scientific approaches to ensure human drug safety.
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