Bob Hennessey
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Feb 2010
Location: off the res.
Posts: 3422 |
A little DNA lesson is in order. Dogs have 38 pairs of chromosomes, half of which they inherit from each parent. Each of these chomosomes are home to 50,000 to 100,000 pairs of genes.
a locus (plural loci) is a fixed position on a chromosome, such as the position of a gene or a biomarker (genetic marker). A variant of the DNA sequence at a given locus is called an allele.
Now, without going into a whole genetics dissertation, please understand these loci are broken down even further. What is used in dogs to establish parentage is known as micrsatellites, or predictable differences within each species at specified locations in the species.
What you received is a measurement of 9 different "loci" that were selected to establish parentage. NOTHING MORE, NOTHING LESS.....
There is no tie to behavior, traits, or actions. Just the fact that we can predict what will be passed on from each parent.
EXAMPLE
I had a dual sired litter a year or so ago. The pups had to be DNA tested as well as both the sire and the Dam before we could determine which sire for which pup....
Pup #1
Sire CD DE AB EF DE GJ CD BD BB BB XY(this one is sex )
Pup CD DD BC FG DE GG BC BD BG BB XY
Dam BC BD BC EG AE GI BE GD BG BB XX
Now....let's break this down a little....understand that we have picked 10 different loci out of as many as 3.8 MILLION available gene pairs....but this is enough to establish parentage.
If you look at the top row, that is the sire's DNA profile, the middle is the pups, and the bottom is the dam's. Know that for each of the locations, the pup will inherit one letter from each parent. If you follow this out, you will see that pattern.
Now, in the pup, let's take the second measurement...the pup is DD That means that if he (we know it is a he because of the xy pattern on the last measurement) is bred, he can ONLY pass on that D in that location.
Please understand that there is no correlation between "traits" and the parentage microsattlelites in dog DNA.
I copied this from a post OAK RIDGE posted a while back.
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