Dogs Received Negative Genetic Traits After Being Domesticated

Man's best friend may have received quite a few negative traits after being domesticated. Scientists have found that the domestication of dogs may have inadvertently caused harmful genetic changes.

Domesticating dogs from grey wolves more than 15,000 years ago involved artificial selection and inbreeding. However, the effects of these processes on dog genomes haven't been studied all that much. That's why researchers decided to take a closer look in this latest study.

The scientists analyzed the complete genome sequences of 19 wolves, 25 wild dogs from 10 different countries, and 46 domesticated dogs from 34 different breeds. The researchers found that domestication may have led to a rise in the number of harmful genetic changes in dogs. This was probably a result of temporary reductions in populations size.

"Population bottlenecks tied to domestication, rather than recent inbreeding, likely led to an increased frequency of deleterious genetic variations in dogs," said Kirk Lohmueller, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Our research suggests that such variants may have piggybacked onto positively selected regions, which were also enriched in disease-related genes. Thus, the use of small populations artificially bred for desired traits, such as smaller body size or coat color, may have led to an accumulation of harmful genetic variation in dogs."

These variations could lead to a number of developmental disorders and other health risks.

The findings show the importance of maintaining larger populations for breeding purposes in order to maintain genetic diversity. This may actually have relevance for breeding programs for rare or endangered species.

The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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