Scientists have identified a unique genetic mutation in Chernobyl dogs

A new study of the DNA of stray dogs at Chernobyl is the first step in trying to understand how exposure to chronic low levels of radiation has affected animals in the area. NewYorkTimes.

Photo: IStock

After the nuclear power plant disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986, local residents were forced to permanently evacuate, leaving their homes and, in some cases, their pets. Concerned that these abandoned animals could spread disease or infect people, the authorities tried to exterminate them.

And yet the dog population somehow survived. They found a common language with the liquidators of Chernobyl, and the work stations that remained in the area sometimes fed them. In recent years, enterprising tourists have also fed the animals.

Today, hundreds of stray dogs live in the area around the disaster site, known as the exclusion zone. They roam the abandoned city of Pripyat and spend the night at the heavily polluted Semikhody railway station.

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Now, scientists have conducted the first deep dive into animal DNA. Chernobyl dogs are genetically distinct from purebred canids as well as from other groups of free-breeding dogs, scientists reported March 3 in the journal Science Advances.

It is still too early to tell whether the radioactive environment contributed to the unique genetic profiles of the Chernobyl dogs, the scientists say. But the study is the first step in trying to understand not only how long-term exposure to radiation has affected dogs, but also what it takes to survive an environmental disaster.

“Do they have acquired mutations that allow them to successfully live and reproduce in this region? said Elaine Ostrander, a canine genomics expert at the National Human Genome Research Institute and senior author of the study. “What problems do they face and how have they coped genetically?”

However, before the researchers could answer these questions, they needed to get an idea of ​​the dog's life in those conditions.

“You have this region where there are different levels of radioactivity, where there are dogs everywhere,” Dr. Ostrander said. “We needed to know who was who and what was what before we started hunting for these critical mutations.”

The project is the result of a collaboration between scientists from the US, Ukraine and Poland, as well as the US-based non-profit Clean Futures Fund working in Chernobyl. The non-profit organization, established in 2016, began its activities by providing medical assistance and support to the workers of the power plant, who are still working in the exclusion zone.

But the organization soon realized that Chernobyl victims also needed help. Although the dog population grew in the summer, it often fell in the winter when food became scarce. Rabies was a constant problem.

In 2017, the Clean Futures Fund began to open veterinary clinics for local dogs, provide care, administer vaccines, and sterilize animals. The researchers used these clinics to collect blood samples from 302 dogs living in various locations in and around the exclusion zone.

Photo: IStock

Almost half of the dogs lived in close proximity to the power plant, while the other half lived in Chernobyl, a sparsely populated residential area about 14 km away. A small number of samples were obtained from dogs in Slavutych, a town built for the evacuated workers of the power plant, which is almost 50 km from the power plant.

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The researchers found that while there was some overlap between dog populations, overall, power plant dogs were genetically different from Chernobyl dogs. There appears to have been little gene flow between the two groups, suggesting that they rarely interbred. The researchers noted that the physical security barriers around the power plant may have helped keep the dogs separated.

"I was quite surprised by the almost complete differentiation between the two populations, by the fact that they actually existed in relative isolation for quite some time," said Timothy Musso, a biologist at the University of South Carolina and another senior author on the study.

The researchers also traced kinship, linking parents and offspring to identify 15 different family groups. Some dog families were large and sprawling, while others were tiny, with more defined geographic areas. The scientists found that three family groups lived near the storage facility for spent nuclear fuel.

"I don't think anyone has previously examined the genetic population of freely bred dogs with this level of detail," said Adam Boyko, a dog geneticist at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine who was not involved in the study.

The study will be a good starting point for further study of the effects of radiation, said Dr. Boyko. “They find interesting populations,” he said, “interesting family groups.”

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The power station dogs and the city dogs were of mixed ancestry. They shared stretches of DNA with German Shepherds, as well as with other East European Shepherd breeds. Dogs from the city of Chernobyl also had variants characteristic of Boxers and Rottweilers.

These DNA segments could provide particularly useful data in future studies, the scientists say. Comparison of these sequences in dogs from a power plant, Chernobyl dogs and purebred shepherd dogs living in a non-radioactive environment could help researchers identify changes in the genome associated with radiation.

“This is a unique opportunity,” Dr. Musso said, “a unique animal population.”

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