Dog Friendliness May be Linked to 2 Genes

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, GTF2I and GTF2IRD1 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.

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Origins of Dog Breeds

In recent research, scientist were able to put together a family tree of all the dog breeds, discovering the 161 canine breeds. The research began when researches began to explore the genomes of the dogs and wanting to understand how the dogs breeds came so diverse and so many breeds exist now. The team gathered DNA samples of dogs. Samples included  dogs from competitions, shows, and the public, and dog owners had no problem being involved. Along with studying the origin of the dog breeds, this also gives researches a better understand of mutations and diseases. I think it is great that researchers are looking into the origin of dogs more in depth and taking the time to understand mutations and diseases that have been occurring more often in dogs. Dogs are now more than just  hunting and nursery tools, that have become part of our families, and learning the origin of our four legged friends is amazing.

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Dog genome research

The Big Search to Find Out Where Dogs Come From

Humans had dogs before any other animal, and scientists are still debating exactly when and where these ancient animals originated. A large new study being carried out at the University of Oxford may provide some answers. Scientists came up with an oversimplified, broad idea that hunter-gatherers used to take wolf puppies from their den and raised them as tamer wolves, later becoming the pets we love and cuddle with. But, this prevailing scientific opinion is hardly plausible because wolves are very hard to tame. This makes it easier to believe that dogs actually invented themselves.

Dogs are different from wolves in many ways: dogs do not travel in packs like wolves do, dogs will eat comfortably in the presence of people whereas wolves do not, and dogs’ skulls are wider and snouts are shorter than wolves’. Scientists generally agree dogs originated around 15,000 years ago, while biologists argue that dogs originated well over 30,000 years ago based on DNA and the shape of their skulls. Modern and ancient DNA sources show that dogs originated in East Asia, Mongolia, Siberia, Europe, and Africa. Unfortunately, Greger Larson, a biologist at the University of Oxford, says that a dog's DNA is very hard to identify due to the interbreeding and blending. In order to get to the bottom of this, Larson and colleague Keith Dobney persuaded "Who's Who" of dog researchers to join a broad project to analyze ancient bones and their DNA. 
            
This is only the beginning of this study, and when it is confirmed where and how dogs originated, it will be a huge milestone for canine science and genetics. Canine scientists need more information on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, but this risks damaging ancient fossils. What geneticists try to establish is how different the DNA of one animal is from another. Adding ancient DNA gives many more points of reference over a long time span. Dr. Larson is hoping that the project will be able to determine whether the domestication process occurred closer to 15,000 or 30,000 years ago, and in what region it took place. But, it is not quite the date, exact location and name of the ancient hunter that some dog lovers might hope for.

I think it may be hard to access more information because ancient fossils are not to be tampered with, but in order to gain this knowledge some might have to be compromised. If scientists study ancient fossils, they can compare DNA and determine when dogs were domesticated. The fossils will also provide important information like how similar wolves' and dogs' DNA were back 15,000 years ago. Comparing the DNA of wolves and dogs now might not show much, because they are so different today. But, if scientists could access ancient DNA from both species they can compare the two when they were both similar, before any evolutionary changes may have happened. To me, it is obvious that sampling ancient fossils will open many doors and bring canine scientists to a conclusion. 

Deeper Digging Needed to Decode a Best Friend’s Genetic Roots

This article explains new research and explanations to the origin of dogs. Cosmologists settled on the idea that about 13.7 billion years ago the universe was created with a big bang. With dogs, the idea is that dogs originated from wolves. It appears that dogs first evolved between 15,000-100,000 years ago in Asia, Africa or multiple locations. Greger Larson at the University of Durham in England, explains the confusion of the origin of dogs through his on going research. Larson argues that the DNA of modern dogs is so mixed up, its difficult to even monitor the origin of dogs a hundred years old. The only way to understand the origin is through the sequencing of ancient dog fossils.

After analyzing 49,024 locations of dog DNA single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), Larson and his colleagues took the DNA from 1,375 dogs of 121 breeds, and 19 wolves. They discovered that six breeds were less genetically mixed. These six breed include the basenji, shar-pei, Saluki, Akita, Finnish spitz and Eurasier. They also found that dogs more genetically mixed were not from places where the ancient fossils have been found.

basenji

Saluki

 Eurasier

In the Origin Of Domestic Dogs, the University of Turku in Finland analyzed mitochondrail DNA from 18 fossils and compared ancient sequences to those from 49 modern wolves and 77 modern dogs. This new data pinpointed Europe as the major nexus of dog domestication. It identified four clades of modern dogs that are most closely related to ancient European dogs rather than wolves from China or the middle east. The largest clade of domestic dogs last shared a common ancestor 18,800 years ago and shared a common ancestor with wolves around 32,100 years ago. They must have domesticated somewhere in between this window.

In one year from the article of "Deeper Digging Needed to Decode a Best Friend's Genetic Roots" and the "Origin of Domestic Dogs," they have been able to narrow the origin of the domestication of dogs. The ancient dog fossils were key to understanding the origins of dogs.

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/science/dogs-genetic-roots-remain-obscure.html?_r=1&