Genetics Meets Proteomics: Correlating the Portuguese Water Dog Blood Serum Proteome with Genetic Markers

Blood serum is a body fluid widely used for biomarker discovery and therefore numerous studies aim at defining its proteome. The serum proteome is subject to fluctuations resulting from biological variability (eg, diurnal variations) reflecting both healthy and/or disease-related conditions. Inter-individual differences originate partly at the genetic level and may influence clinical blood profile including the serum proteome. Therefore we investigated whether serum protein abundance is genetically determined: we report the study of a cohort of 146 Portuguese Water Dogs, a dog breed whose genetic background has been well characterized. We generated protein profiles of dog sera on 1D-gels and correlated them with microsatellite markers. We detected correlations between 7 gel bands and 11 genetic regions and developed a label-free protein quantification method to identify and quantify the proteins most accountable for serum proteome variation. An association between the abundance of RBP4 in dog serum and the adiponectin gene was detected.