Random question for any geneticists

Happy · Post by **Happy** » Thu Jan 05, 2017 9:17 am

Since I have never had the pleasure of knowing anyone in this field I wonder if I can ask a completely non-chicken related opinion of you @WLLady and anyone else that may have an opinion or experience with this.
There's a bunch of different "DNA tests" that you can purchase now that supposedly provides background on what parts of the world your ancestry comes from...Some claim that they provide some health predispositions based on your genetic makeup.
This is something I'm interested in purely for entertainment sake as there's an unknown in the family history that we have guessed about for years. I wonder what an expert in the field thinks of these tests...Is there any accuracy to them? Or complete waste of time and money?

Geez edited twice to get geneticists spelled correctly lol. I hope it's right now.

TomK · Post by **TomK** » Thu Jan 05, 2017 12:25 pm

Happy..ive often wondered the same thing and more...i am the unofficial family historian here for borh sides..the errors in historical data are numerous..but also, this concept of bloodlines..its kinda crazy if you think about it because people fool around..a lot..and a couple of centuries ago, hell even now, the upper class had mistresses and lovers all over the place and usually, they are the only ones who had recorded family histories of any great depth...in my own case, i was born in Germany as were my folks...my mom has always said that there was gypsy (Roma) in her background somewhere but knew not at what point...if these dna tests were any good it would be fun to know ...if not, its just another few dollars spent unwisely... :running-chicken:

Post by **thegawd** » Thu Jan 05, 2017 12:35 pm

I think the genetic tests should reveal everything. the genome has been mapped for all the different ethnic backgrounds so they should be 100% accurate. I havent done it though. how much do these cost? I had a paternity test for my daughter, not my idea because I knew she was mine as soon as she was born but it cost $900.

Happy · Post by **Happy** » Thu Jan 05, 2017 1:03 pm

My maternal grandmother was raised with the belief that she was Irish. It wasn't until she applied for a passport and had to get a copy of her birth certificate first (in her 50's) that she found out her dad was not her dad. Her brother who was killed on D-day and her were fathered by an unknown man. Anybody that may have solved the mystery stayed quiet and they're now all gone. They both had very dark hair and complexion.
Now I'm blonde from my dad's German side but I tan in a heartbeat and have been told by several dentists/hygienists over the years that I have pigment spots on my gums indicating dark skin in my ancestry. I'm fascinated by this and would simply love to know!
Al there's quite a few different options and prices I've seen. Ancestry.com seems to be the popular one and I think it's about $130.00. Some dive into the health predispositions but I'm not too interested in that. I've been asked if I want to be screened for Alzheimer's since my father and his mother both had it...Nope. I don't want to live for what might happen tomorrow and I would have a melt down everytime I lost my keys or glasses!

TomK · Post by **TomK** » Thu Jan 05, 2017 1:31 pm

Who yo daddy?...lol

Post by **WLLady** » Thu Jan 05, 2017 2:49 pm

ha ha. great question happy.

From an entertainment point of view. go for it. from a medical point of view do NOT waste your money.

entertainment: if you want to know if you have genes from an african race or whatever, then these kinds of tests are fairly good. but with all the movement of people all over the world it will not be 100% accurate. For instance if woman a in africa has a child with man b from china, child c would get some chinese genes (from dad) and african genes (from mom) then if that child has their own child with another chinese person the resultant child will still have african genes, but more chinese genes. so which generation? how far back? dunno. but they're there. the other thing that they do is recognize things called snps (snips). these are little pieces of DNA that have a change in the coding that is found predominantly in one locale. so if a gene reads AGGGGTGGGT in someone from canada, but AGGGGCGGGT in say findland then the base change T>C is called a finnish snip. it's found only in finnish people. these are the things that get sequenced in these screens. keep in mind that the reference genome is actually a database of many whole genomes sequenced from many different people, so you will get a listing of snps and from that can infer your background. so from this point of view it's pretty neat. you will find out if the swedish cook was involved somewhere way back when. It will also identify cool things called "runs of homozygousity"...these are HUGE stretches in the genome that are identical in both copies of the DNA we carry. To have 2 copies that are identical (without snps) is a bad thing.....that shows that somewhere there was consanguinous inbreeding. we run into this sometimes in the clinic where someone presents for genetic testing for ALS and we discover that somewhere in the last 5-6 generations that mom and dad were related and some of the ALS genes are now bearing runs of homozygousity. somehow (and we don't know how) these ROHs seem to contribute to disease.

Medical. i would not waste your time if you are interested in what diseases you *may* get. UNLESS this is done through a doctor's office. any idiot can sequence a genome now-it's not rocket science. you put some enzymes in a tube and hit go. but those enzymes can introduce errors.....and if you are looking for a particular mutation to see if you may get a cancer, you better get it done right. and that's through a medical facility, not mail order.
and even then not every mutation will guarantee that you WILL get the disease. very few diseases are actually 1 hit things. and by 1 hit i mean 1 mutation, or 1 thing causing it. more and more it seems that multiple hits are needed, so a mutation PLUS another insult like DNA breakage, or exposure to UV, or an enzyme inbalance. AND if you do this test and your insurance company gets hold of it, will they still cover your medical costs? The point at which you identify the TMEM mutation associated with pancreatic cancer may be construed as the time it becomes a preexisting condition based on their definitions. and viola drop you for your 6000$/month chemo when you are finally diagnosed IF you do get it.

so. my thoughts on it. for entertainment sure why not.
if you have a family history of a disease with a known mutation and you want to be screened so you can participate in surveillance-much like i will do when my dad gets his genotyping done for his pancreatic cancer-i will go and get tested through my family doctor for that mutation so i can start suveillance early and get rid of it should it happen.....i would NOT use one of the those mail order places. i would do any medical testing through an approved, high efficiency, quality controlled medical testing facility. and those mail order places are not those.....

Happy · Post by **Happy** » Thu Jan 05, 2017 3:12 pm

Wow if I could hit "like" 5 times I would lol. I actually understood that! Thank-you very much! And yes I wouldn't trust my possible medical future to just anyone who could post a website

Post by **thegawd** » Thu Jan 05, 2017 3:24 pm

and thats why I was wondering how much it costs cuz just to do a paternity test was $900. great post Kathy!

KimChick · Post by **KimChick** » Thu Jan 05, 2017 3:53 pm

I would never, willingly, have my DNA tested. Because then it is "in the system". But that's just me.

windwalkingwolf · Post by **windwalkingwolf** » Thu Jan 05, 2017 4:41 pm

I don't know about the one for people, like 23andme, but the one for dogs like dnamydog, are hit or miss. I wouldn't trust a piece of automatic software to give accurate results, I'd want experienced eyes on it as well, ones that could catch possible errors and double check.