Researchers have long asked how dog house pets, being related to wolves are so kind and affectionate, since that behavior is not necessarily in their nature. Much research has lead to the conclusion that the answer may be in the genetics of the animal. Research has concluded that the friendliness of dogs may share a genetic basis with the human disease,
Williams-Beuren Syndrome. This disease is caused by mutations along genes, which resuls in people showing a variety of symptoms, such as intense and indiscriminate sociability. The two genes in dogs, GTF
2I and GTF
2IRD
1 have been found to be associated with the
Williams-Beuren Syndrome in humans.The increased socialism in dogs being related to two particular genes is caused by a deletion in part of dog DNA on the chromosome. This area is of much interest and importance because learning more about it could help scientists understand more about how wolves were essentially turned into dogs.
Article
Very interesting article, but speaking from my experience quite honestly not all dogs are friendly mostly because of bad experiences with dogs in the past but not to stray from the topic I would assume its safe to make a conclusion based on the article that dogs that are not so friendly actually do have the genes GTF2I and GTF2IRD1 inserted in the DNA on the chromosome. With the recent advancements in gene editing technologies, most notably CRISPR, I hope such corrections(deletions in this case) can be made in embryonic puppies with those genes and hopefully there'll be more friendly dogs around.
ReplyDeleteDogs are my favorite kind of pets and to think that their genes could be the answers to their friendliness is pretty fascinating. I have always believed on how they are raised might have been a main factor towards their actions (good or bad) but maybe their genes has more effect than anything else. Never would have known!
ReplyDelete