Metabolomics shows the Australian dingo has a unique plasma profile

Abstract

Dingoes have not been artificially selected in the past 3,500 years. They occupy a wide range of the Australian mainland and play a crucial role as an apex predator with a generalist omnivorous feeding behaviour. In contrast, humans have selected breed dogs for novel and desirable traits. First, we explore whether the distinct evolutionary histories of dingoes and domestic dogs can lead to plasma metabolomic differences. We study metabolite composition differences between dingoes (n=15) and two domestic dog breeds (Basenji n= 9 and German Shepherd Dog: GSD n=10). After accounting for within group variation, 62 significant metabolite differences were detected between dingoes and domestic dogs, with a greater number of differences in protein (n= 14) and lipid metabolites (n= 12). Most differences were observed between dingoes and domestic dogs and fewest between the domestic dog breeds. Second, we investigate variation between pure dingoes (n=10) and dingo-dog hybrids (n=10) as hybridisation is common. We detected no significant differences in metabolite levels between dingoes and dingo-dog hybrids after Bonferroni correction. However, power analyses reported that increasing the sample size to 15 could result in differences in uridine 5-diphosphogalactose (UDPgal) levels related to galactose metabolism. We suggest this may be related to an increase in Amylase 2B copy number in hybrids. Our study illustrates that the dingo metabolome is significantly different from domestic dog breeds and hybridisation is likely to influence carbohydrate metabolism.