CANINE CARDIAC BIOMARKERS: NATURE, ACTIVITY AND USE

Abstract

Diagnosis of cardiac diseases and their therapeutic interventions mostly rely on combined clinical examination, radiography, electrocardiography, and echocardiography. However, wide variability among different dog breeds may also mislead the interpretation of ECG, echocardiography, and thoracic radiographs. Thus, the identification and monitoring of blood-based cardiac biomarkers along or in combination with other diagnostic tools could be a promising approach to diagnose cardiac diseases. The most extensively studied cardiac biomarkers in canines are cardiac troponin-I (cTnI) and B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) concerned with myocardial injury. Recently galectin-3 and interleukin 1 receptor-like 1 protein (ST2) have been reported to be suitable cardiac biomarkers for human patients but, their application is limited in canines due to a lack of research. Genes specific for cytoskeletal protein synthesis in cardio-myocytes such as α α α-cardiac actin, LIM domain binding factor 3 (LDB3), and myosin heavy polypeptide 7 were reported to be associated with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) in dogs. DCM in dogs has been linked to metabolites such as 4-guanidinobutanoate, fructose, N-linolenoyltaurine, uracil, 2methoxyhydroquinone, and 2-methoxyhydroquinone sulfate. Therefore, the metabolomic and genomic approaches to diagnosing cardiac diseases in dogs could be a promising approach in the future.

Keywords

• biomarker
• cardiac troponin-i (ctni)
• b-type natriuretic peptide (bnp)
• metabolomics
• genomics