Key to the study was the opportunity to utilize the world's largest canine DNA bank maintained by Professor Hannes Lohi's research group. We validated the disease association of 21 loci from 14 chromosomes," says Professor Antti Iivanainen from Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Helsinki, and continues: "Genes related to a protein modification process known as neddylation were overrepresented among the genes residing in the validated loci. This was an interesting new find.