this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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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] 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.