“It was reassuring that one of the ‘neighboring’ genes to our best marker was indeed previously implicated,” she said. It was, however, in proximity to a gene already known in other species to be associated with chondrocyte (a cartilage-producing cell) proliferation, a sign sometimes observed histopathologically (under a microscope) with kissing spines, said Laura Patterson Rosa, DVM, PhD, a scientific consultant at Etalon Diagnostics and first author of the group’s study publication. This allele did not correlate with the horses’ height, which appears to be a separate and unique factor for kissing spines, Lafayette said. This single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) BIEC2-668062 is linked to an average increase in one kissing spines severity grade for each of the horse’s two copies of the allele (one from each parent). The team identified one associated variant, or allele, for kissing spines on Chromosome 25. The Genetics: One Severity Grade Higher for Each Copy The horses’ veterinary evaluations revealed they ranged from having severe Grade 4 kissing spines to no kissing spines. The group ran genotyping on 155 Warmbloods and stock-horse breeds that had presented to the participating veterinarians’ clinics due to back pain and/or poor performance. Shortly after returning from AAEP, Lafayette teamed up with Beau Whitaker, DVM, of the Brazos Valley Equine Hospital, in Salado, Texas, and Kent Allen, DVM, of Virginia Equine Imaging, in The Plains-who were also at that AAEP dinner table-and several other engineers and researchers to take on the task of finding the “kissing spines gene.” “I was sitting with some incredible equine veterinarians at AAEP, and I just literally wrote down on a napkin what we hoped we could solve by next year, and the genetics behind kissing spines was on the top of the list,” said Lafayette.
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