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GBED Glycogen Branching Enzyme Deficiency

Name: GBED Glycogen Branching Enzyme Deficiency
Brand: Equigerminal
Price: 43.05 EUR

Test that shows if your horse carries the gene change that, with two copies, gives a foal whose muscles cannot...

€43.05 Με ΦΠΑ

About

This test shows whether your horse carries the gene change behind GBED, an inherited disease in which a foal cannot store sugar in a usable form. Affected foals always die, most often before they are born.

It is meant for Quarter Horses, Paint Horses and related breeds and crosses, before breeding or sale.

Why test?

Breeding. Knowing the result of both parents tells you what each mating can produce, so you can avoid conceiving an affected foal.

A lost pregnancy or foal. If a mare aborts late or a foal dies young, testing the parents or the foal shows whether GBED was the cause.

Buying and selling. The result is objective information you can show a buyer.

Clinical signs

Many affected foals are aborted or born dead. Of those born alive, most died or were put down by 8 weeks old in the published cases, and none has been found to live past 18 weeks.

Abortion late in the pregnancy, a foal born dead, or a foal born early
Weakness all over, unable to stand or to suck, lying down and not getting up
Legs that come up bent and contracted, which then straighten out again
Fits, in some foals because the blood sugar has fallen too low
Fast breathing and a fast heart, breathing failure, an irregular heartbeat, and sudden death, including after exercise
On blood tests: a low white cell count, raised muscle enzymes, and blood sugar that keeps dropping
After death the organs look almost normal to the eye

None of these signs is unique to GBED, and it is easily mistaken for other newborn diseases. Your veterinarian or a pathologist makes the diagnosis.

Transmission

GBED is recessive. A foal needs one copy from the sire and one from the dam to be affected. The gene is not on a sex chromosome, so colts and fillies are affected equally.

What each mating can produce:

n/n x n/n gives 100% n/n
n/n x n/GBED gives 50% n/n, 50% n/GBED
n/GBED x n/GBED gives 25% n/n, 50% n/GBED, 25% GBED/GBED

Affected foals never reach breeding age, so in practice no mating involves a GBED/GBED parent.

Prevention

There is no treatment, so prevention is a breeding decision.

Breeding. Mate a carrier only with a partner that tested negative, and test every foal. No affected foals are born, though some foals will be carriers. This keeps a valuable line while the variant is bred out. Being a carrier is not by itself a reason to stop breeding a horse.

An affected foal. Nothing changes the outcome. Your veterinarian guides supportive care and welfare decisions.

Results

n/n: negative. No copy of the GBED variant. Cannot pass it on.

n/GBED: carrier. One copy. The horse is completely healthy and cannot be recognised any other way. Can pass the variant on.

GBED/GBED: affected. Two copies. The foal has the disease.

Sample

Hair roots: 20 to 40 hairs pulled (not cut) from the mane or tail, with the roots attached. Tape them inside the marked area of the printable sample submission form. Hairs without roots cannot be analysed.

Blood: 5 mL of whole blood in a K3-EDTA tube, collected by a veterinarian. Label the tube with the horse's name and send it with the submission form.

Tissue: preserved tissue kept after a post-mortem can also be tested, so an aborted foal or a dead newborn stored at a laboratory can still be checked.

Keep samples dry and at room temperature, and do not freeze them. Do not send hair that is wet, mouldy or soiled with bedding or faeces.

Turnaround

Standard processing: results within 5 to 10 working days of the sample arriving at the laboratory. Shipping is arranged and paid for by the client, and transit time is not included in the 5 to 10 working days.

Samples that fail DNA extraction or amplification are repeated at no extra cost, which may add a few working days. We contact you if a new sample is required.

How it works

🛒 Buy the test: select and buy the test online.

📧 Receive the instructions: after payment is confirmed, you receive the sample collection instructions by e-mail.

📄 Complete the form: print and complete the submission form with the animal’s identification.

✨ Collect the sample: pull 20 to 40 hair roots with the bulb and stick them in the marked area of the form, or ask your veterinarian to collect blood in a K3-EDTA tube.

📮 Send it to the laboratory: Equigerminal, S.A., HIESE, Rua da Quinta do Sobreiro, 25, Quinta Vale do Espinhal, 3230-343 Penela, PORTUGAL.

📊 Receive the report: the certified report is issued as soon as the analysis is validated.

FAQs

At what age can a horse be tested?
Any age, from newborn foal to adult. The genotype never changes, so one test lasts for life.

Can pedigree tell me instead?
No. Most Quarter and Paint Horses that are not carriers descend from the same foundation stock as the carriers. Only the DNA test tells them apart.

For Professionals

Genetic and clinical detail for veterinarians, geneticists and laboratories.

Gene / locus: GBE1 (1,4-alpha-glucan branching enzyme 1), ECA26.
Variant: c.102C>A, nonsense (premature stop codon), no functional enzyme. HGVS (EquCab3.0): NC_009169.3:g.8667651C>A; NM_001081940.2:c.102C>A; NP_001075409.1:p.(Tyr34*).
Alternative designations: Y34X; equine glycogen storage disease type IV (GSD IV), the same disease as GSD IV in humans. Laboratory allele symbol: GBED.
Variant identifiers: rs3437568674 (EVA); OMIA variant 322.
Variant classification: Pathogenic (P), ISAG/AVCG classification as listed in OMIA.
Mechanism: without branching enzyme, glycogen cannot be packed into its branched storage form; an abnormal, poorly branched polysaccharide that cannot be broken down accumulates in skeletal muscle, heart, liver and brain.
Inheritance: autosomal recessive, lethal; pedigree and genotype data consistent with a single founder (Wagner et al., 2006). OMIA code: A (autosomal).
Penetrance / expressivity: homozygotes: abortion, stillbirth or neonatal death. About 2.5% of aborted and neonatal foals of Quarter Horse-related breeds submitted to two US diagnostic laboratories were homozygous, most of them abortions; characteristic deposits were found retrospectively in 8 of 9 affected foals (Wagner et al., 2006). In the first published series, related Quarter Horse foals all died by 7 weeks: stillbirth, transient flexural deformities, seizures, respiratory or cardiac failure, or persistent recumbency (Valberg et al., 2001).
Breeds with documented carriers or cases: Quarter Horse and American Paint Horse (OMIA variant record); Quarter Horse-related breeds and crosses, including Appendix Quarter Horses; confirmed in Brazilian Quarter Horses (Araujo et al., 2018). Not found in 227 Thoroughbreds (Wagner et al., 2006). Appaloosas and Ponies of the Americas are often tested because of Quarter Horse ancestry, but no confirmed carrier is known in a published study.
Allele / carrier frequencies: carrier frequency 8.3% of 338 Quarter Horses, 7.1% of 197 Paint Horses, 0% of 227 Thoroughbreds (Wagner et al., 2006). Allele frequency 5.4% in 200 control Quarter Horses and 13.2% in western pleasure horses (Tryon et al., 2009). Carrier frequency 7.94% of 742 Brazilian Quarter Horses competing in cutting, halter, racing, reining and barrel racing (Araujo et al., 2018). Allele frequency 10.9% in elite reining Quarter Horses, unchanged over time in the random cohort (Brown et al., 2026; 300 performance and 300 random horses born 2020 to 2024). Carrier and allele frequencies are not interchangeable; for a rare recessive the allele figure is roughly half the carrier figure.
Clinical / diagnostic notes for veterinarians: consider GBED in abortion, stillbirth or weak neonates of Quarter Horse and Paint lineage. Abnormal polysaccharide deposits in cardiac muscle, skeletal muscle and liver are easily missed unless periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) staining is used; the heart is the most reliable site, but at least one confirmed affected foal showed no deposits. Erythrocyte branching-enzyme activity (about half-normal in carriers) gave only an indication and has been superseded by DNA testing.

Key references:

Ward TL, Valberg SJ, Adelson DL, Abbey CA, Binns MM, Mickelson JR (2004). Glycogen branching enzyme (GBE1) mutation causing equine glycogen storage disease IV. Mamm Genome 15:570-577. PMID 15366377.
Valberg SJ, Ward TL, Rush B, Kinde H, Hiraragi H, Nahey D, Fyfe J, Mickelson JR (2001). Glycogen branching enzyme deficiency in Quarter Horse foals. J Vet Intern Med 15:572-580.
Ward TL, Valberg SJ, Lear TL, Guerin G, Milenkovic D, Swinburne JE, et al. (2003). Genetic mapping of GBE1 and its association with glycogen storage disease IV in American Quarter horses. Cytogenet Genome Res 102:201-206. doi:10.1159/000075749.
Wagner ML, Valberg SJ, Ames EG, Bauer MM, Wiseman JA, Penedo MCT, Kinde H, Abbitt B, Mickelson JR (2006). Allele frequency and likely impact of the glycogen branching enzyme deficiency gene in Quarter Horse and Paint Horse populations. J Vet Intern Med 20:1207-1211.
Tryon RC, Penedo MCT, McCue ME, et al. (2009). Evaluation of allele frequencies of inherited disease genes in subgroups of American Quarter Horses. J Am Vet Med Assoc 234:120-125. doi:10.2460/javma.234.1.120.
Araujo CET, Delfiol DJZ, Badial PR, Oliveira-Filho JP, Araujo-Junior JP, Borges AS (2018). Prevalence of the glycogen branching enzyme deficiency mutation in Quarter Horses in Brazil. J Equine Vet Sci 62:81-84. doi:10.1016/j.jevs.2017.10.010.
Brown BN, Hughes S, Le TM, Tatar NP, Grahn JC, Carrillo-Alvarez M, Bellone RR, Finno CJ (2026). Allele frequencies of 7 inherited disorders in performance and random cohorts of American Quarter Horses (2020-2024). J Am Vet Med Assoc 1-7. doi:10.2460/javma.26.04.0256.