BY: SAMANTHA BARTLETT, DVM
The journal, Nature, recently published an article about The Dog Aging Project led by researchers at Princeton University. Researchers are evaluating the genomes of dogs enrolled in the project to study dog lifespans. The dataset from this research will allow scientists to assess how a dog is aging and establish criteria for healthy aging in dogs. Researchers on this project foresee their results having impacts in both veterinary and human medicine. The Dog Aging Project is funded by a grant from the National Institute on Aging.
While humans have guidelines for what is considered normal aging, not much is known about dog aging. The guideline of 1 dog year equal 7 human years is generic and inaccurate. It is known that larger dogs tend to age faster than small dogs and, of course, they all age faster than humans.
The Dog Aging Project was started in 2018 and has thousands of dogs enrolled as study subjects. These participants cover a wide variety of ages, breeds, sizes and backgrounds. Members of the research team of sequencing the genomes of these dogs to find insights into the genetics of canine aging and health. The project is expected to run at least 10 years. Currently there are more than 32000 dogs in the project and researchers are still recruiting.
Since dogs share most of the same issues with functional decline that people do as they age, researchers hope that identifying the biomarkers associated with canine aging can lead to insights into human aging. Not only do dogs share many of the same aspects of aging as humans but they share the same environments, which often play a role in aging.
Participation is for the duration of the project. Owners of participants fill out annual surveys and take measurements of their dogs for researchers. Some also collect swabs for DNA or work with veterinarians to collect fur, fecal, urine and blood samples to send to the research lab.
Within the Project, there is also the super-centenarian study that focuses on the oldest dogs within the Project and compares them the average of their breeds’ lifespans. The goal is to hopefully isolate more indicators of aging and possibly ways to mitigate conditions often found in aged individuals including dementia and arthritis.
The dataset is set to be released to the rest of the scientific community within a few months. This will allow other fields of research to have access and contribute in other ways related to their specialties and interests.
