Canine diabetes mellitus is a heterogeneous disease and, in the
majority of cases, the underlying pathogenesis of disease is not
established, although insulin deficiency is a consistent feature.
The presence of certain diabetes phenotypes, along with specific
breed predisposition to these different types of diabetes mellitus,
suggests an underlying genetic basis for disease susceptibility,
but which might vary from breed to breed. Candidate gene studies
so far have revealed some gene associations with the disease and
ongoing genome-wide association studies are likely to identify novel
loci that are involved in determining breed susceptibility to
diabetes mellitus in dogs. At a time when ‘one health/one medicine’
is being emphasised,5 studying diabetes mellitus in companion
animals and the opportunities this presents in terms of comparative
and translational research, might help to bridge the knowledge gap
between understanding the pathophysiology and genetic basis of
the disease and development of interventional therapies