Not long after the 2019 Havemeyer Workshop on Equine Asthma, Dr. Dorothee Bienzle of the Ontario Veterinary College contributed to a global collaborative research paper – The current understanding and future directions of Equine Asthma research.

Bienzle and her team concentrate on the host response to challenges like dusty barn air by looking at the epithelium in the lung. By the time a horse presents with severe equine asthma (heaves) – they are looking at the disease close to the end stage. By taking biopsies of the epithelium in horses with heaves, they look at the genes and proteins that are present and expressed. Changes often include: airway remodeling, inflammation and fibrosis, to name a few. “The goal would be to identify the disease early during onset, which might allow the disease to be reversed,” says Bienzle.

Through next generation sequencing, Bienzle and her team have distinguished differences in gene expression between asthmatic and non-asthmatic horses. They have looked at signature variants that may indicate a susceptibility to asthma. They have identified a lack of certain anti-inflammatory proteins such as CCSP.

Advertisement