and find out if it is linked to disease in other organs
such as the stomach and intestine. Preliminary results
suggest that the disease is not linked to other kidney,
stomach or intestinal disease in cheetahs, so genetic
and/or environmental factors may play a role.
In 2014, Dr Desiré Dalton (DR&SS, NZG) and Prof
Laurie Marker of Cheetah Conservation Fund in
Namibia were thrilled to be awarded funding for
two years, through a National Research Foundation
Bilateral Agreement, to develop scientific
collaboration between the two countries.
CCF (www.cheetah.org) is the world’s leading
organization dedicated to saving the cheetah in the
wild and maintains a research program on the biology,
ecology and genetics of cheetahs.
The funding has enabled scientists and students to
visit each other’s institutions to inform each other of
our research areas and fields of interest, exchange
ideas, work in each other’s labs and participate in
collaborative research.
The project chosen was to determine whether or not
oxalate kidney disease could be caused by mutations
in the same two genes that are linked to the disease
in humans and domestic cats. Genetic investigations
are the expertise of Dr Dalton and Dr Anne SchmidtKüntzel (CCF) as well as a new member to the team Dr
Monica Mwale, a forensic geneticist at the DR&SS.
Although the sequencing of the genes in samples
from affected and unaffected healthy cheetahs is still
underway, affected cheetahs are more closely related
than unaffected ones, supporting a possible genetic
role for the disease.
All the hard work came together on a cool dusty June
afternoon when Prof Antoinette Kotze (Manager,
DR&SS, NZG), Prof Terio and Drs Dalton, Lane and
Mwale as well as Antonie Kloppers (a student working
on the genetics project) arrived at CCF for a workshop
to discuss all the results to date and plan for ways in
which the collaboration can go forward in the future.
NZG staff were made very welcome by Prof Marker
and Dr Schmidt-Küntzel and the CCF team.
In addition to presenting and discussing our
results and planning future collaborative research
programmes, we were taken on visits to the cheetah
exercise programme, the museum, a tour of the new
genetics labs, the cheetah tracking and scat detection
projects, the goat and sheep model farm as well
as the small stock Anatolian/Kangal shepherd dog
programme. CCF approaches cheetah conservation
from a wide-ranging multidisciplinary platform with
strong community education programmes.
Watch this space! This is only the beginning of what
we expect to be a long and fruitful collaboration.
Publications documenting our results are underway
and perhaps one day we may have test that will
distinguish those cheetahs that are predisposed to
oxalate kidney disease so we can investigate the
disease in free-ranging cheetahs and reduce the level
of the disease in captive cheetahs.
E Lane, M Mwale, H Brettschneider, A Kotze, D Dalton
(NZG)
A Schmidt-Küntzel L Marker (CCF)
K Terio (UI)
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