Defining the Relationship Between Equine Herpesviruses and Development of the Equine Gastric Ulcer Syndrome (EGUS)

Principal Investigator: Gerlinde Van de Walle

Baker Institute for Animal Health
Sponsor: Harry M. Zweig Memorial Fund for Equine Research
Title: Defining the Relationship Between Equine Herpesviruses and Development of the Equine Gastric Ulcer Syndrome (EGUS)
Project Amount: $49,242
Project Period: January 2016 to December 2016

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): 

Although equine gastric ulcer syndrome (EGUS) has a known negative impact on equine performance, only a few options exist to treat gastric ulcers in competitive horses and those treatments are mainly focused on supportive care. Importantly, treatment of EGUS can be expensive and does not address the etiology of this syndrome. Therefore, proper knowledge regarding the causal factors in EGUS development is needed for the development of targeted, more efficacious therapeutics. Recently, we preliminary demonstrated the presence of EHV-2 and EHV-5, two equine gammaherpesviruses that are correlated with “general malaise” or “poor performance” in racehorses, in a limited set of gastric ulcer samples. These findings have led to our hypothesis that equine herpesvirus infections could play a significant role in the development of the equine gastric ulcer syndrome (EGUS).