Animal DNA Testing

07 Jul 2017

Animal DNA testing has really picked up and the demand for these tests just keeps growing. Animal DNA testing is nothing to do with testing on animals to see the effectiveness of medicine or cosmetics and the likes. Animal DNA testing is entirely harmless to the animal and is done for their benefit, the benefit of the breeders and animal lovers.

 Parenting Testing for Animals

Yes, there is a paternity test or maternity test for animals. In much the same way as we do paternity DNA tests to determine who the biological father of a child is, a dog breeder may want to know which male dog has sired a litter of puppies. To carry out such a test, all one needs is to take an oral swab and rub it the mouth of the dogs who you think could have sired the puppies and take DNA samples in the same way from the puppies. The sire and his puppies will have matching DNA profile and thus it is easily possible to determine parentage. Why would anyone want to determine parentage of a puppy? Well, a breeder would have interest in this as it is the only scientific way to establish pedigree of the brood.

 How accurate is parentage DNA testing for animals?

The exclusion of parentage is always high and will show a probability of 100% exclusion; this means that the male dog in question is not the biological “father” of the puppy. On the other hand, the accuracy of parentage will be of 99% if both the suspect sire and the mother are included in the analysis. If the mother of the brood is not included, the inclusion falls to around 95%. If a large group of potential related parents are involved, the inclusion rate drops further. If there is more than one alleged sire or dame and these might be related, the laboratory can still conclude the test but need to be informed of the situation- they can in such cases test additional genetic markers to determine parentage.

 Animal DNA testing: Health

You can check the health of your animals by testing their DNA to know what diseases and conditions they may have a predisposition to. Is your dog predisposed to degenerative Myelopathy? Hyperuricosuria? Might your Persian develop polycystic kidney disease (PKD) or cardiomyopathy? Knowing the presence of such conditions means that breeders can ensure that only dogs not carrying those genes are used for mating and can thus, produce a genetic guarantee that the dog, cat or horse you are buying is free from these diseases genes.

The cost of these tests is also reasonable and, thus when weighed against the passion one has for animals, is worth the cost. Animal DNA testing is definitely recommended for animal lover and animal breeders.