Hereditary ataxia in the Jack Russell Terrier--clinical and genetic investigations.

Hereditary ataxia in the Jack Russell Terrier (JRT) is characterized by a gait disturbance with symmetric generalized ataxia and hypermetric and spastic movements. Histopathology shows a disease of the entire central nervous system, predominantly an axonopathy. In the present study, 35 clinically affected dogs were examined. Gait abnormalities began at 2-9 months of age. Generalized seizures occurred in 13 dogs in addition to the ataxia, and 7 dogs developed respiratory distress. Brain stem auditory-evoked potentials (BAEPs) were abnormal in 4 of 8 examined dogs, in which only waves I and II were detected. Abnormal BAEPs suggest the possibility of hereditary ataxia in the JRT. Investigations regarding the mode of inheritance were performed by complex segregation analyses on 3 pedigrees with a total of 115 JRTs (27 clinically affected dogs and 88 unaffected littermates and ancestors). Different modes of inheritance were tested, including monogenic, mixed, and polygenic models, as well as a model with environmental effects only. Models with genetic effects explained the data significantly better than the environmental model. The monogenic model had to be rejected in this study because of an insufficient match of data when compared to that of the most general model. The polygenic and mixed major gene models explained the pedigree data best and therefore have to be regarded as possible hypotheses for the mode of inheritance of hereditary ataxia in the JRT. The polygenic model proved best suited to explain the segregation pattern in the JRT, because it had the fewest number of parameters.