Gene discovery in truffle dogs could help children with epilepsy

A new epilepsy gene found by an international team of EU-funded researchers in Lagotto Romagnolo dogs, known for their gift for truffle hunting, could be a new candidate gene for human benign childhood epilepsies characterised by seizure remission. The gene, LGI2, was found by an international team led by scientists from the University of Helsinki and the Folkhälsan Research Center in Finland. Although dogs are less genetically complex than humans, they suffer from the same diseases; any discoveries made by scientists about a dog's gene could be relevant to human health too.