Genetic determinants and polygenic architecture of canine aggression

초록

Canine aggression poses significant public health, economic, and animal welfare challenges. To investigate the genetic basis of canine aggression, we performed clinical assessment and precise phenotyping of individual dogs based on a standardized severity scale. By genotyping 94 clinically phenotyped dogs and leveraging genotype and behavioral data from 1854 dogs in the Darwin's Ark dataset, with behavioral phenotypes derived from owner-reported questionnaire responses, we conducted genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to identify germline genetic variants associated with aggression. The genome-wide significant and suggestive loci have shown associations with cognitive and psychiatric disorders in humans, indicating conserved molecular mechanisms across species. Complementarily, an identity-by-descent (IBD)-based haplotype sharing difference analysis was performed to assess whether ancestral contributions from purebred lineages differ between high- and low-aggression strata in mixed-breed dogs. This integrative approach marks a significant advance in understanding the genetic underpinnings of canine aggression and provides a valuable resource for researchers pursuing the experimental validation of psychiatric gene candidates.

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