Gene that helps race horses manage BP could help human athletes, too Premium

Horse racing research reveals DNA sequence influencing blood pressure regulation, offering insights into cardiovascular health in humans.

Humans have entertained themselves with horse racing for hundreds of years. Even so, who would have guessed that some day the sport might help us understand how our blood pressure is regulated during exercise?

On June 17, researchers from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala reported discovering a DNA sequence in horses that underlies superior racing performance. The sequence influenced levels of two proteins involved in regulating blood pressure. Their results were published in the journal PLoS Genetics.

“By shedding light on the intricate mechanisms governing blood pressure modulation, the findings hold promise for advancing our understanding of cardiovascular health and disease,” the researchers wrote in their paper. They added that the implications also encompass “a myriad … physiological processes influenced by hormone signalling”.

Six years ago, the researchers had reported that horses with the genomic region ran faster. But at the time they couldn’t link the region to any underlying physiological trait. This has changed now.

The North Swedish draught horse is a sturdy breed people in the Nordic region use for farm and forestry work. It is ‘cold-blooded’, in this context meaning a large, heavy horse with an easy-going temperament. Faster, lighter, more energetic, and temperamentally more skittish horses are said to be ‘hot-blooded’. (The actual body temperature of all horses is 37.5-38.5 degrees C.)

By the early 1800s, people began to use the North Swedish horse in harness races, where the horse pulls a two-wheeled cart with a seat for the jockey. At first they used the farm horses, but inevitably, to gain a leg up, breeders began illegally crossbreeding the North Swedish horse with a hot-blooded American harness-racing breed called the standardbred.

Faced with this fait accompli, racing authorities divided the North Swedish into two new breeds: the North Swedish draught horse for farm work and the cold-blooded trotter for racing. Cold-blooded trotters share much of their genome with the North Swedish draught horse, but they also contain segments from the standardbred that enhance their racing ability.