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Canine Mendelian disease record

Nonsyndromic hearing loss (Discovered in the Rottweiler)

Nonsyndromic hearing loss (Discovered in the Rottweiler). Autosomal recessive. Observed in 2 of 266 breeds tested in the Sniff Atlas, with measured carrier frequencies drawn from 242,664 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:002336-9615
Autosomal recessive
Source dataset
Sniff Atlas v1.0.1 / DOI
The human connection

A model of human autosomal recessive nonsyndromic hearing loss 77

This is the canine counterpart of autosomal recessive nonsyndromic hearing loss 77 in people. That makes affected dogs a naturally-occurring model of the human disease, and it is part of why studying dogs moves medicine forward for everyone. It does not mean your dog has the human disease. It means the two share an underlying biology.

In people, the disease is described as: Any autosomal recessive nonsyndromic deafness in which the cause of the disease is a mutation in the LOXHD1 gene.

In humans it is also called: DFNB77.

MONDO:0013119 OMIM 613079

Mapped from OMIA via the human disease's OMIM entry to the Mondo Disease Ontology (Monarch Initiative, CC-BY 4.0). Sniff renders this as a model-of link; the canine disease remains the subject of this page.

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.

Clinical features

Hytönen et al. (2021): "Sensorineural bilateral deafness was diagnosed in four Rottweiler siblings (one female and three males) in a litter of ten puppies using brainstem auditory evoked response (BAER) testing. BAER testing was performed either at 4 (n = 2), 5, or 19 months of age, and no auditory response was detected in any of them. However, owners’ observations suggested that the puppies had already been affected by hearing impairment at a few weeks of age. No other clinical signs were observed."

Molecular genetics

Using "a combined approach of homozygosity mapping and genome sequencing to dissect the genetic background of the disorder . . . . [Hytönen et al. (2021)] identified a fully segregating missense variant [chr7:44,806,821G>C; p.(G1914A)] in LOXHD1, a gene that is known to be essential for cochlear hair cell function and associated with nonsyndromic hearing loss in humans and mice."

Prevalence

Hytönen et al. (2021): "The allele frequency in the population [of Rottweilers], excluding the affected family, was 2.6% and carrier frequency 5.3%. An additional sample of dogs submitted for commercial genetic testing was screened for the LOXHD1 variant to explore its distribution across breeds. All 28,116 tested dogs representing 374 breeds, breed varieties or designer dog mixes were found homozygous for the wild-type allele (Online Resource 7). Finally, the variant was also screened in a larger study sample of 771,864 dogs submitted to genetic testing, including breed detection assessment. A variant carrier frequency of 0.08% and allele frequency of 0.04% were observed in this dataset. Interestingly, six dogs were found homozygous for the LOXHD1 variant. We were able to contact the owners of 4/6 of the homozygous dogs and the owners reported profound hearing loss or deafness in all of them. One of the deaf dogs did not show any immediate Rottweiler ancestry, while one was a purebred Rottweiler and two were mixed-breed with Rottweiler ancestry. Altogether, of the dogs carrying at least one copy of the deafness candidate variant, 63.4% showed evidence of Rottweiler ancestry in their immediate three-generation pedigree going back to great-grandparents, providing further support for a link between this specific breed background and the presence of the variant."

Inheritance

Hytönen et al. (2021): "To validate the LOXHD1 variant, we genotyped it in a cohort of 585 Rottweilers, including the four affected siblings and 581 unaffected dogs. We observed complete segregation of the variant with hearing loss, as all four affected dogs were homozygous for the variant. The unaffected dogs were either heterozygous (n = 33) or wild-type (n = 548). The six unaffected littermates of the probands were either wild-type or heterozygous for the variant."

Human analog

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

Disease · OMIM 613079 Gene · OMIM 613072

Source: OMIA (Nicholas, Tammen & the Sydney Informatics Hub), entry OMIA:002336-9615, 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 Nonsyndromic hearing loss (Discovered in the Rottweiler) 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 Nonsyndromic hearing loss (Discovered in the Rottweiler) 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%1%2%
Rottweiler0.89% · n 4,718
American Staffordshire Terrier<0.1% · n 42,793
n = 47,511 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 Nonsyndromic hearing loss (Discovered in the Rottweiler) is measured; phenotype outcome depends on penetrance and modifiers.
▸ Full table with Wilson 95% confidence intervals
Breed Carrier frequency n tested
Rottweiler 0.89% 4,718
American Staffordshire Terrier <0.1% 42,793

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:002336-9615.

  • 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:002336-9615 · Donner et al. 2023