Jaehyuk Yang

Prevalence of Anhidrosis in Thoroughbred Racehorses in Korea

The primary means of heat dissipation in horse results from the evaporation of sweat. Anhidrosis refers to a decreased ability or loss of ability to sweat in response to appropriate stimuli. This disease is fatal and causes poor performance, increased body temperature, collapse, convulsion and even death. There are some reports about this disease abroad but not in Korea. We performed intradermal epinephrine test to investigate the prevalence of anhidrosis in Thoroughbred racehorses(n=50). The prevalence was 22% and it was similar to that of other countries. There does not appear to be sex, foaling country, coat color, age or pedigree of dam predispositions. In this study, we found the presence of anhidrosis in Korea. Anhidrosis should be prevented for economical purposes and general animal welfare.

Genetic Characterization of Wolla Coat Color in Jeju Horses

ABSTRACT This study was carried out to define the “Wolla” coat color using 376 Jeju registered horses (white patched 142, solid coat color 234). Three major factors related to the white patches i.e ECA3-inversion for Tobiano, EDNRB 2 bp nucleotide substitution for frame Overo, and the KIT intron 16 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) for Sabino types of coat color were analyzed. It was found that out of 142 Jeju horses with white patches that have the genotype for ECA3-inversion ( To ) 140 horses were + /To heterozygous and 2 horses were To/To homozygous all Jeju horses with white patches had ECA3-inversion allele. However, there was no frame Overo or Sabino allele type in EDNRB and KIT intron 16 SNP in Jeju horses with white patches. As for 234 Jeju horses with a solid coat color, there was no ECA3-inversion allele related to the white patches. Thus, it could be considered that Wolla coat color with white patches in Jeju horses might have come from the Tobiano line in the genetic classification by coat color.(

Characteristics on Equine Herpesvirus Type 3 from Korea

Equine coital exanthema caused by equine herpesvirus type 3 (EHV-3) is a venereal disease which seriously drops horse reproduction rates. Here, we isolated EHV-3 from infected horses and investigated their biological characteristics. Initial cytopathic effects such as rounding of cells were detected 48 hours post infection of the virus into RK-13 cells. The infected cells were going to detach from the surface of culture flasks 72 hours post infection. The type of isolated viruses from swabbed samples was EHV-3 by PCR analysis. Glycoprotein G (gG) of isolated EHV-3 has a 99.25 percent similarity rate to that of EHV-3 334/74 control strain. The isolated EHV-3 was named Georo strain. Georo strain consisted of four major proteins including 145 kD, 60 kD, 45 kD and 40 kD, as shown by SDS-PAGE analysis. We hope the newly isolated Georo strain of EHV-3 can be used for studying various aspects of Korean equine coital exanthema.