An estimated 80 million cats in American households suffer from 334 inherited traits (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Animals: data base search 12/20/16) which include 199 models ofcognate human diseases. Of these, 93 have a Mendelian inheritance pattern with 61 known mutations, leaving hundreds of complex diseases with unknown genetic basis. The random bred domestic cat (domestic short haired and long-haired) represents the highest proportion of owned cats and the highest proportion of feline patient-visits at Cornell’s Companion Animal Hospital. The Cornell Veterinary Biobank (CVB) has been archiving DNA from feline patients since 2005. The CVB contains more than 1,000 DNA samples isolated from unique cats and more than 200 tissue samples from more than 100 unique cats. In addition to collecting DNA and tissue samples from diseased cats, a critical component of
the CVB archive program has been in-depth health screening of aged cats to serve as “universal” mapping controls and to provide data to identify genetic loci that influence clinicopathologic traits. With increasingly sophisticated tools for feline genetic research, such thoroughly phenotyped patients represent an invaluable resource to study both complex and simple Mendelian disease in cats. These samples are essential for well-powered, genome wide association studies (GWAS) to dissect the genetic basis of
complex feline diseases. Our ultimate goal is to map inherited traits and diseases that afflict pure and random bred cats. In order to do so, we need adequately powered studies with genotyped controls that have been intensively screened to definitively rule out the diseases we wish to map.