Dogue De Bordeaux
Dogue De Bordeauxs have a cited life expectancy of 11.1 years (McMillan 2024 / VetCompass, n=3,427, 95% CI 10.6 to 11.7). The most carried tested variant is Canine Multifocal Retinopathy 1, in 15% of 199 Dogue De Bordeauxs tested (Donner 2023), then Cystinuria Type I-A (7%) and Focal Non-Epidermolytic Palmoplantar Keratoderma (1.5%). Only 9 dogs stand behind the atlas figures here, so little is known yet.
Also known as Bordeaux Mastiff, Bordeauxdog, and French Mastiff.
What genetic diseases do Dogue De Bordeauxs carry?
From a panel of 250 Mendelian-disease variants screened in 1,054,293 dogs (Donner et al. 2023), Dogue De Bordeauxs carry 4 of them at observable frequency. Carrier frequency is not clinical risk. Most recessive variants require two copies for disease expression; many dominant variants show incomplete penetrance. Read this as a population fingerprint of what's in the gene pool, not a per-dog prediction.
BEST1what this gene does
BEST1 is a gene that helps maintain the health of the retina, the light-sensitive layer at the back of the eye. It plays a role in keeping the cells in the retina functioning properly.
For your dog: If your dog is from a breed known to carry BEST1 variants, it’s worth discussing retinal health with your vet, especially if you notice any vision changes.
SLC3A1what this gene does
SLC3A1 is a gene that helps transport certain amino acids in the kidneys. It plays a key role in preventing the buildup of cystine, which can form stones.
For your dog: If your dog is from a breed known to carry SLC3A1 variants, it’s worth discussing cystinuria risks with your vet, especially if urinary issues arise.
RPGRIP1what this gene does
RPGRIP1 is a gene involved in the function of photoreceptor cells in the eye, which help dogs see in different light conditions.
For your dog: If your dog belongs to a breed known to carry RPGRIP1 mutations, it’s worth discussing with your vet to understand the risks and monitor eye health.
What these results mean for a Dogue De Bordeaux
7.0% of Dogue De Bordeauxs in the Donner 2023 cohort carried it (n=199).
- The kidneys fail to reclaim an amino acid called cystine, which can form crystals and stones in the urine and block the urinary tract.
OMIA 000256-9615
“Cystinuria, type 1 - A is an inherited defect that causes failure of reabsorption of cystine in the proximal renal tubule, leading to cystine precipitation in the urine. Formation of crystals and calculi lead to urolithiasis and urinary tract obstruction.” OMIA 000256-9615
What to do
Straining to urinate, or passing little or no urine, needs a veterinarian the same day.
No test, or a mix
Without a test nobody can say how many copies a dog has.
Other names
The Dogue De Bordeaux is also recorded as Bordeaux Mastiff, Bordeauxdog, and French Mastiff.
Identified as Dogue De Bordeaux (VBO:0200450) in the Vertebrate Breed Ontology (Mullen et al. 2025, CC-BY 4.0) · registry IDs FCI 116 · iDog 90 · VeNom 19077.
For researchers Population genetics, disease models and every recorded condition Open the research detail for the Dogue De Bordeaux
In the atlas, the Dogue De Bordeaux clusters consistently as Dogue De Bordeaux (100% of the 9 dogs here). Genetic diversity is high (mean heterozygosity 0.3268), reflecting either a mixed-breed cluster or breeds with broad genetic backgrounds. Dogs here sit in a relatively sparse region of the atlas, fewer close neighbors than typical.
Mean heterozygosity is 0.327, notably high, indicates broad genetic background. High breed predictability score (1.03), individual dogs of this breed reliably cluster together genetically. Only 9 dogs of this breed in the atlas, every individual contributes outsized weight to the breed's computed profile.
What the atlas genotypes say about Dogue De Bordeaux
Computed from the 14,478 CanVAS dogs in the Atlas, on an imputed genotype backbone: 77,215 directly typed sites per dog, imputed to 9.67 million variants.
The confidence below counts dogs, not reads: it is the size of the sample, and it is separate from how the genotypes were measured.
Not enough dogs in the atlas yet (n=9) for a reliable diversity figure. It fills in as more are added.
What does genetic diversity mean?
How varied a breed's gene pool is — the share of gene spots where a typical dog of the breed carries two different versions rather than two identical ones.
How to read it: Higher = more diverse. Among well-sampled breeds it ranges roughly 0.22 (least diverse) to 0.33 (most diverse).
Diversity is a strength, not a verdict on any individual dog. Lower diversity means it's worth paying attention to recessive-risk testing — not that a dog is doomed.
Not enough dogs in the atlas yet (n=9) to resolve cluster structure. It fills in as more are added.
What does within-breed variation mean?
How much individual dogs within the breed differ from each other genetically.
How to read it: Higher = more internal variety among individuals of the breed.
Sensitive to how many dogs of the breed we've sampled.
What does typical lifespan mean?
The median age dogs of the breed tend to reach.
How to read it: Higher = longer-lived. Compare to longevity-for-size to see whether it's just a size effect.
Drawn from population lifespan records; individual dogs vary widely with care, genetics, and luck.
Dogue De Bordeauxs are a natural model for human disease
Because the same genes cause the same conditions across species, the inherited conditions documented in Dogue De Bordeauxs help researchers understand, and work toward treating, the human diseases they model. This is the dog advancing human medicine. The breed models the human disease; it does not have it, and this is not a prediction for your dog.
- autosomal recessive bestrophinopathy, modeled by the breed's Multifocal retinopathy 1 , the same underlying biology.
- palmoplantar keratoderma, nonepidermolytic, focal 1, modeled by the breed's Palmoplantar keratoderma, nonepidermolytic, focal 1 , the same underlying biology.
- OMIM:602151, modeled by the breed's Screw tail , the same underlying biology.
- OMIM:224700, modeled by the breed's Tricuspid valve dysplasia , the same underlying biology.
Every condition recorded in the Dogue De Bordeaux
Beyond the testable carriers above, OMIA's literature catalogue records 5 genetic conditions in the Dogue De Bordeaux, 4 of which have a known human equivalent. This is the documented landscape across all Dogue De Bordeauxs ever studied, not a prediction for any one dog.
- Multifocal retinopathy 1 Autosomal recessiveHuman equivalent: autosomal recessive bestrophinopathy
- Palmoplantar keratoderma, nonepidermolytic, focal 1 Autosomal recessiveHuman equivalent: palmoplantar keratoderma, nonepidermolytic, focal 1
- Screw tail Autosomal recessiveHuman equivalent: OMIM:602151
- Tricuspid valve dysplasia Autosomal recessiveHuman equivalent: OMIM:224700
- Osteochondritis dissecans Multifactorial
Where every number on this page came from.
This page draws on three primary data sources. Carrier frequencies for the Mendelian section come from Donner et al. 2023 (CC-BY-4.0). We grade these data at evidence Limited because the cohort is a direct-to-consumer ascertainment, which biases toward owners who chose to test their dogs. The panel also uses tag-SNP proxies for some variants rather than direct causal-variant assays. Limited is a study-design grade, not a quality grade: the Donner cohort is the largest open canine-genotype dataset in existence and we are grateful for it. We rate the confounding MEDIUM.
Population-genetic dimensions (heterozygosity, intra-breed PCA distance, nearest neighbors, trait-locus frequencies) come from CanVAS (Brundage 2026), harmonized through the Sniff Atlas. The exact release date and verification commit are pinned at the bottom of the page so a researcher can trace a number back to a specific snapshot. The disease-gene-variant graph comes from OMIA (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Animals; Nicholas, Tammen, and the Sydney Informatics Hub at the Sydney School of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney; retrieved April 2026, DOI 10.25910/2AMR-PV70).
What this page does not yet have. Inheritance modes and per-disease penetrance evidence from Donner 2023 are in the structured data for every variant the panel covers. Mondo, OMIM, Ensembl, and HGNC cross-references live on the gene and disease pages this page links to, rather than being repeated here. What is still absent from this breed page is anything not in the cited panel, and each such gap carries its cause where it appears.
How to cite this page. The computed dimensions on this page are derived from the open Sniff Atlas v1.0.1 (Gehring 2026, doi:10.5281/zenodo.20566358, CC-BY 4.0). Full citation formats including BibTeX, RIS, and CITATION.cff at sniff.world/cite.
Some things about living with a dogue de bordeaux never make it into a database. Add what you know as a Keeper, in your words →
Lived experience, kept beside the science.We have 9 dogue de bordeauxs. We do not have yours.
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- Donner J, Freyer J, Davison S, Anderson H, Blades M, Honkanen L, et al. (2023). Genetic prevalence and clinical relevance of canine Mendelian disease variants in over one million dogs. PLOS Genetics 19(2):e1010651. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1010651
- Brundage DM (2026). CanVAS: A Harmonized and Imputed Canine Variant Atlas. bioRxiv. doi:10.64898/2026.04.13.718238
- Nicholas, F.W., Tammen, I., & Sydney Informatics Hub. (2026). Online Mendelian Inheritance in Animals (OMIA) [dataset]. The University of Sydney. https://omia.org. doi:10.25910/2AMR-PV70 (retrieved April 2026).