Research overview: the cat as a genetic model for human disease

Cats develop many spontaneous diseases analogous to human conditions, and this overview surveys their value as natural genetic models. It examines feline counterparts of human disorders including polycystic kidney disease, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, retinal degenerations, lysosomal storage diseases and certain infections, where studying affected cats has illuminated disease mechanisms and potential therapies. The survey discusses how the high-quality cat genome and shared sequencing efforts accelerate mutation discovery, and how cats' physiology, in some cases closer to humans than rodent models, makes them informative for translational research, including gene-therapy approaches tested in cats with inherited blindness or storage disease. It situates feline biomedical genetics within comparative medicine, presenting the cat as both a beneficiary of genetic research, through carrier screening, and a contributor to understanding and treating human genetic disease.