Molecular diagnosis in testing genetic diseases in horses

In some populations of domestic animals genetic defects are a serious econo mical problem. Thus it seems very important for contemporary animal breeder s to collect information about genetic diseases prior to diagnosis of carri er animals. It should be pointed out that effective therapy exists for the majority of these types of diseases. At present the main way of dealing wit h this problem involves detecting heterozygous individuals and excluding th em from breed stocks. The article reports 3 genetic diseases with known genetic backgrounds: HYPP - hyperkalemic periodic paralysis, SCID - severe combined immune-deficienc y disease, LWFS - lethal white foal syndrome. It also reports the results o f genetic testing for identifying carrier animals and decreasing the level of defective alleles in the population.