The power of Whole Genome Sequencing

Genotyping involves looking at a very specific part of DNA, the genotypes.

On the chromosomes are the genes. A gene is a piece of DNA. Each gene describes the code of a characteristic, which (co)determines how the dog looks, how the body works or how he/she is.

Every dog has a total of about 19,300 genes. We only know about a quarter of them what role they play in certain conditions.

The dog inherits a version of each gene from its father and from its mother. Which version the parents pass on also depends on which version they inherited from their father and mother. And so on. And which characteristics your dog got also depends on which version of the gene was predominant.

Genes have influence, but do not determine everything! For example, you need 17 locations (markers/genes) alone to determine an ideal weight.

One can draw the conclusion that genotyping is based on assumptions, because it therefore only looks at certain locations in a very limited way. For certain abnormalities, there must also always be an abnormality in another location that together ensure that there is an actual abnormality.
If the weather in Paris is 20 degrees, it will not automatically be the same in New York.

Can you tell the story well if you only get to read once, only letter 10 on page 5, letter 8 on page 100 and letter 80 on page 125, from Alice in Wonderland?

An exon is the coding part of the gene. Together with the intron, it forms the translation of the particular gene. All the exons, or pieces of genes that make up the building plans for the body, are called the exome. So this is a recipe, but you don't see how to read that recipe in an exome. This still has to be encoded or translated, also called transcription.

This is a bit like a book where, between the readable text, there are suddenly some lines made up of random letters. These random letters will be extracted in the final "book", creating a story that is fully readable. The exons make up that readable text.

Because only the exons are looked at here, you still cannot read the whole book.

'Whole genome sequencing' (WGS) on the whole DNA(!), looks not only at the known genes, but also at the DNA that lies between them. This is actually still done mainly for scientific research, as it is an intensive way of research.

PetGenoma makes this possible for your dog from now on!

Whole Genome Sequencing analyses the whole genome and not just a part as current gene panels, such as the one above, do. This test provides a complete picture of all DNA biomarkers.

Developing and validating a gene panel test like the one above sometimes takes up to a year. These panels then need to be updated and validated again as new biomarkers become relevant. WGS contains all the gene panel tests you can think of together. All existing biomarkers are detected.

This gives two main advantages. It is no longer necessary to use a standard panel or validate and implement new panels with each individual. If new biomarkers are discovered, the software used to analyse the data can be adjusted accordingly very quickly. Your dog's data can therefore be constantly re-examined in case of new discoveries!

Another advantage is that you no longer have to choose which test to do. Because WGS includes everything in one test, you can be sure ("first time right") that you are doing the right diagnostics. Just because your dog is a labrador and that often carries a certain disease, does not mean that this also applies to your labrador dog. In this way, you are no longer testing by breed alone.

Can you tell the story well if you read the whole book, sentence by sentence, letter by letter?
And that even 5x in a row?