Wild Blue Dogs is currently supporting the following research program in connection with Cornell University. Both the veterinary and human divisions are working in concert to move cancer research forward for both species.
Metabolomics Dataset
Our clinical team at the Cornell Veterinary Biobank has collected 76 blood samples - 43 from controls and 33 from patients with lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system. From each blood sample, we extracted plasma, the liquid part of the blood.
The main role of plasma is to take nutrients, hormones, and other important molecules to the parts of the body that need them. Importantly, blood plasma has many metabolites, which are small molecules created or used when the body digests food. These molecules include, among many others, amino acids (the building blocks of proteins), as well as fats and sugars. The body breaks down the food we eat in a process called metabolism, which generates from food the energy and the building blocks that the body needs to maintain its health and keep growing.
When an individual is sick, however, the body is not able to work properly, and the metabolism is affected. This means that the type and abundance of metabolites in the blood plasma of sick individuals will be different from that of healthy individuals. By characterizing these differences, scientists can identify which individuals are sick even before they have any symptoms, identify how different diseases interfere with the normal activities of the body, and even identify potential cures.
To measure these molecules contained in the blood plasma of our dogs, we used a technology called mass-spectrometry. Different molecules are made of different atoms, and each atom has a different weight. A mass spectrometer is a machine that can measure the weight ("mass") of the different molecules in the plasma and can quantify how many molecules with a given weight there are. After passing our blood plasma samples through this machine, therefore, we identify which types of molecules are present in the plasma and how abundant they are, i.e., how many molecules of each type we have in that sample.
The final product of the mass spectrometer is what we call a "metabolomics dataset", which includes numbers describing the abundance of each metabolite in each blood sample.
In our population of dogs, the metabolomics dataset included the abundance of 1,039 different metabolites: of these, 425 are different types of fats, and 28 are different types of sugars. The remaining 586 are other types of molecules that the body needs to function.
In the next phase of this project, we will analyze these data and identify which molecules have very different abundances in healthy versus diseased dogs. We call these molecules "differential metabolites", and they are important because they will help us better understand how the disease modifies the metabolism of dogs. This information could potentially be used to identify better treatments for our canine companions. Moreover, we will also investigate whether the differential metabolites in dogs are the same we see in humans affected with the same disease. This comparison will help us better understand whether the disease has the same effect in the two species.”