07 October 2016

Genes Associated with Human Interaction in Dogs

We have all heard the phrase that says dogs are a man's best friend. In many people's opinion dogs are the superior pet because they have the ability to be trained, while cats know what you are saying but they honestly do not care. Over their evolution, domestic dogs have developed social skills that allow them to communicate and cooperate with humans and even pick up on when "their" human is emotional. Even puppies seem to have this cognitive ability to process human communication; this makes scientists question that this might have a genetic basis. Persson et al. used this concept and a genome wide association study in beagles to map the genes that are responsible for their superior social skills.




One hundred and ninety laboratory beagels' genomes were mapped using an HD Canine SNP-chip and then given a device that they could manipulate to get treats. The first two were fairly easy to get but the third was one difficult and this made them seek out a human for assistance. Five possible genes on chromosome 26 were then identified that were associated with their social skills with humans. These genes are the first possible genes that corroborate that there is a genetic basis in human socializing in dogs meaning that this socialization happened over the course of their domestication and evolution.




Another interesting finding is that one of the possible genes, SEZ6L, is the same gene that has been recently found to be associated with autism spectrum disorder and polymorphisms are responsible with bipolar disorder in humans. The polymorphism of the gene COMT is also known to be the cause of susceptibility to develop schizophrenia in humans. This same polymorphism in varying degrees was found in other dog breeds suggesting that this could be the gene responsible for regulating behaviors.


While the purpose of this research is to map the genes associated with behavioral traits in dogs, the also paper cites other studies suggesting that there are breed-dependent diseases, like heart disease and epilepsy, that suggest that dogs could be used as a model organism for human disorders. This brings me to question, how would these scientists use dogs as a model for understanding disease progression and mental health disorders? Would they induce the disease process by genetic modification like they do for mice, who have shorter gestation periods and life spans? What do you think about this new information?


Reference: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep33439

3 comments:

  1. After somehow managing to get approval for doing research on dogs, because that might just be impossible, it would be really cool if something could be developed to alleviate human diseases. I feel like this would more likely help with the behavioral studies, which would be cool because now we will have a better way to diagnose behavioral diseases.

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  2. Lab beagles?

    To identify genes associated with behaviors, they must have also quantified the behavior in the dogs, right? This is often the hardest part of behavioral genetics, in my opinion.

    Heather: I haven't heard the term "behavioral disease" before. Are you referring to autism? And maybe this is a controversial question, but is that something that people would interpret as a disease?

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  3. With advances in molecular biology, I wonder if one day someone would be able to give the gene that gives the dogs their social characteristics to cats. I think it would be really cool to have a cat that actually listens to your demands and responds. Just a random thought. Being someone that knows many people who have autism spectrum disorders (My organization on campus works with kids who have special needs), it is great to hear about the ongoing research that could one day tell us how these behavioral genes are regulated.

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