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Pet DNA testing company in doghouse after identifying human as canine (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/895673

DNA My Dog received human genetic sample and identified it as a malamute, shar-pei and labrador, according to news station

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Dogs have 38 pairs of chromosomes, humans only 23. It should not be possible for this to happen.

In the article they claim they got results from one of the human cheek swabs and not the other. It is possible that they just don't keep their equipment clean enough and some actual dog DNA got into the mix.

Either way, the other companies receiving similar samples just said there was no dog DNA there. This company has repeatedly provided dog results for human DNA samples. Whatever happened they're doing something very wrong.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

They have 1 job and failed at that

[–] [email protected] -4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You have no idea what you are talking about.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If I'm wrong, I don't know how I went wrong so please, do me a favour and explain.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

The number of chromosomes is not relevant for distinguishing dog breeds based on sequenced DNA. It is not even relevant to distinguish between dog and human.

Here is some more academic teaching material about genome sequencing: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9291972/

Here is the wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_sequencing

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I'm not sure what an article about whole genome sequencing has to do with anything? These companies are looking at a handful of SNPS.

Can you explain how it is possible to look at an SNP without knowing which chromosome it is located on?

And how the other companies were confident there was no dog DNA in the sample and this company said it found dog DNA in only one of the two samples sent?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

The article is about sequencing technology. This is what is needed to get from physical DNA to its textual representation. The assignment to chromosomes is lost in the process. It can either be reconstructed after sequencing, by e.g. whole genome assembly or k-mer based methods.

But there are other methods of identifying races than looking at correctly identified SNPs. Often, k-mer content is enough. And it is likely more efficient, because it does not require any computationally heavy assembly.