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Canine Mendelian disease record

Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia (Discovered in the Alaskan Malamute; NME5-related; PCD)

Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia (Discovered in the Alaskan Malamute; NME5-related; PCD). Autosomal recessive. Observed in 2 of 266 breeds tested in the Sniff Atlas, with measured carrier frequencies drawn from 242,663 dogs (Donner 2023). Per-dog phenotype outcome depends on penetrance, modifiers, and environment; the carrier frequencies below describe variant prevalence, not disease incidence.

OMIA identifier
OMIA:002206-9615
Autosomal recessive
Source dataset
Sniff Atlas v1.0.1 / DOI
About this disease

From OMIA's curated record

Documented in OMIA (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Animals). This describes the disease as recorded in the published literature, not a prediction for any individual dog. As of 2026-06-03.

Summary

Several types of primary ciliary dyskinesia exist. See also 'OMIA001540-9615 : Ciliary dyskinesia, primary, CCDC39-related in Canis lupus familiaris' and 'OMIA000573-9615 : Ciliary dyskinesia, primary, generic in Canis lupus familiaris'.

Clinical features

Anderegg et al. (2019): "severe bronchial lung pattern and bronchiectasis on thoracic radiographs in both dogs . . . Direct rhinoscopy and bronchoscopy revealed hyperemic mucosa, medium to large amount of mucopurulent secretions along the upper and lower airway tracts and moderate to severe turbinate lysis in the nasal cavity in both dogs . . . Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid was compatible with chronic active purulent bronchopneumonia."

Molecular genetics

Anderegg et al. (2019): "Whole genome sequencing of one [Alaskan Malamute] case and comparison to 601 control genomes identified a disease associated frameshift variant, c.43delA, in the NME5 gene encoding a sparsely characterized protein associated with ciliary function. . . . The genotypes at NME5:c.43delA showed the expected co-segregation with the phenotype in the Alaskan Malamute family. An additional unrelated Alaskan Malamute with PCD and hydrocephalus that became available later in the study was also homozygous mutant at the NME5:c.43delA variant". Immunohistochemistry demonstrated absence of the NME5 protein from nasal epithelia of an affected dog.

Pathology

Electron microscopy of cilia from nasal epithelium revelaed alterations at the inner and outer dynein arms of motile cilia. Inner dynein arms were shortened or absent in 95% - 100% of the investigated cilia, outer dynein arms were shortend or absent in 60% - 80% of cilia. In normal cilia, there is a 9 + 2 arrangement of microtubules with two single microtubules in the center and nine pairs of peripheral microtubules. In an affected dog, extra peripheral microtubule singlets appeared occasionally (Anderegg et al. 2019).

Prevalence

Anderegg et al. (2019): "The mutant allele was not present in more than 1000 control dogs from different breeds."

Human analog

OMIA links this condition to the human gene record in OMIM (Mendelian Inheritance in Man), the place to read across to the deeper human literature for the same biology.

Source: OMIA (Nicholas, Tammen & the Sydney Informatics Hub), entry OMIA:002206-9615, doi:10.25910/2AMR-PV70 (CC-BY 4.0).

The evidence

Published references

The peer-reviewed papers behind this disease, curated by OMIA. Starred entries are OMIA-designated landmark papers.

References curated by OMIA (Nicholas, Tammen & the Sydney Informatics Hub), doi:10.25910/2AMR-PV70 (CC-BY 4.0). Full list at the OMIA entry.

Predict a litter

Set each parent's status for Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia (Discovered in the Alaskan Malamute; NME5-related; PCD) and see the odds for their puppies. Single recessive variant, exact Mendelian math.

Parent A
Parent B
NNClear
NmCarrier
NmCarrier
mmAffected
Clear25%
Carrier50%
Affected25%

These are the genetic odds for one known variant, not a promise: a real litter varies around them, and penetrance or other genes can change whether the condition ever appears. Use it to avoid pairing two carriers and to keep a line healthy, not to engineer a dog. Inheritance mode per OMIA.

Your breed

See what Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia (Discovered in the Alaskan Malamute; NME5-related; PCD) looks like in your dog's breed.

Carrier frequency by breed

Top 2 well-sampled breeds (n ≥ 50)

Maximum per breed across variants in the Donner 2023 cohort, with . The list below is split into well-sampled breeds (n ≥ 50 tested) and small-sample breeds (n < 50, where the Wilson CI typically spans more than 20 percentage points and frequencies should not be compared directly to the well-sampled entries). Frequencies are population-level, not per-litter or per-line.

0%3%5%
Alaskan Malamute1.4% · n 504
Siberian Husky<0.1% · n 9,035
n = 9,539 dogs · Donner et al. 2023 carrier-screening cohort · Sniff Atlas
Each bar is one well-sampled breed; the whisker is its Wilson 95% CI, and fainter bars have wider intervals. Frequencies are population-level, not per-litter. Carrier status for Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia (Discovered in the Alaskan Malamute; NME5-related; PCD) is measured; phenotype outcome depends on penetrance and modifiers.
▸ Full table with Wilson 95% confidence intervals
Breed Carrier frequency n tested
Alaskan Malamute 1.4% 504
Siberian Husky <0.1% 9,035

264 additional breeds in the Donner 2023 cohort were tested but showed no carriers.

Scope of this record

Scope

This record carries the breed-level carrier frequencies from the Donner 2023 cohort. Penetrance data (the fraction of at-risk dogs that develop the phenotype) is not yet quantified for this disease in the Sniff Atlas v1.0.1. The OMIA entry is the authoritative reference for the clinical phenotype, inheritance pattern, and gene assignment.

Predicted disease relevance at the per-dog level is UNPROVEN. The carrier frequency is measured; phenotype outcome depends on penetrance, environment, and modifier loci. Consult a veterinarian for clinical interpretation.

How to cite this record

Citations

If you use this record in published work, cite the Sniff Atlas (the published dataset that carries the breed-level carrier frequencies) and the upstream sources:

  • Sniff Atlas v1.0.1 for the per-breed carrier frequencies:

    Gehring, M. (2026). Sniff Atlas v1.0.1. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20566358. CC-BY 4.0.

  • OMIA for the disease definition, inheritance, and gene assignment:

    Nicholas, F. W., & Tammen, I. (2024). OMIA. Sydney Informatics Hub, The University of Sydney. https://doi.org/10.25910/2AMR-PV70. Entry: OMIA:002206-9615.

  • Donner et al. 2023 for the breed × variant carrier-frequency cohort:

    Donner, J., Freyer, J., Davison, S., Anderson, H., Blades, M., Honkanen, L., et al. (2023). Genetic prevalence and clinical relevance of canine Mendelian disease variants in over one million dogs. PLOS Genetics, 19(2), e1010651. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1010651.

Full citation formats (BibTeX, RIS, CITATION.cff) at sniff.world/cite.

Related

Related

Last updated
Sources: Sniff Atlas v1.0.1 · OMIA OMIA:002206-9615 · Donner et al. 2023