Woof! Dog Genome Assembled

Manwe's Herald writes "The first draft of the dog genome sequence has been deposited into free public databases for use by biomedical and veterinary researchers around the globe, the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced today."

Comments

Genealogy of a Mutt

[crow]

So how soon will I be able to take a DNA sample from my dog and find out what combination of breeds she is?

Re:Genealogy of a Mutt

[SB9876]

The issue of Science a few weeks back had a bg article devoted to the dog genome completion. They also reported results from initial studies that showed the relationships between various dog breeds. It turns out (as suspected) that dogs were domesticated in Asia as asian breeds are the most different from other domesticated breeds and most similar to wolves. They did an evolutionary tree for the rest of the dog breeds but the cladistics are still being worked out so most of the other breeds are still in a bit of limbo. They expect to work out the relationships of those breeds over time.

This study was significant because it was the first to be able to unambiguously identify dog DNA by breed reliably. Previous attempts using smaller numbers of SNPs tended to be very innacurate.

The biggest result of the dog genome is for human medicine. Geneticists have been pushing for dog genomes (they're already working on a second dog breed genome) for years. Purebreed dogs are a geneticists dream. Each breed has distintive features as well as characteristic diseases such as arthritis, nerve degeneration and cardiovascular disease. Purebreed dogs are also basically giant inbred families with meticulous documentation about their lineage. Having dog genomes actually has a great deal of potential to revolutionize human medicine as a result.

Massive number of chromosomes

[RobertB-DC]

I had heard that the biggest problem with either sequencing the dog's DNA or cloning a dog (the Missyplicity project) was the comparatively large number of chromosomes. In fact, a National Geographic article titled "Wolf to Woof" (tiny excerpt available here) notes the dog's 78 chromosomes (compared with our measly 46) as one of the reasons you can group a Great Dane and a Pomeranian as part of the same species.

I'm a cat person, myself. Cats, being contrary by nature, allowed themselves to be cloned, but then came out looking completely different because coat color and pattern is determined after conception.