Doggy DNA: Few Genes Separate Chihuahua from Great Dane

We encourage you to share any articles or material you find on Miller-McCune.com with friends and colleagues. Please fill in the fields below with the name and e-mail address. Then fill in the same information for you. Miller-McCune will not keep any information about you or your friend, and the e-mail your friends receive will appear to have come from your e-mail address. The asterisk (*) denotes a required field.

From dainty toy poodles to steadfast bulldogs to massive Saint Bernards, dogs come in a dizzying array of shapes and sizes. But their dog genes are remarkably similar.

What is it about the biology of dogs that allows dog breeders to wring so much physical variation out of a single species? The link between the DNA and the physical appearance of a species is generally difficult to sort out, but a revolution in genetic technology has made a breakthrough possible with dogs.

In the podcast, Dr. Adam Boyko, a geneticist at Stanford University, talks about the connection between the appearance and the genetics of 80 dog breeds. Contrary to expectations, Boyko’s research shows that just a handful of genes control the most fundamental parts of a dog’s appearance. In one example, dogs range hugely in body size (think of a mastiff compared to a Chihuahua), but incredibly just three genes account for almost all of this difference in size.

Dogs and humans share a lot of diseases: cancer, diabetes, arthritis, to name a few and this new understanding of canine genetics may hold the long term key to curing the many illnesses that beset humans and dogs alike.

Poodles, Everything about Purchase, Care, Nutrition, Behavior, and Training

Dogdom, monthly

Time & tide business world

The Dog fancier

Poodles for Dummies