New large cat study: 11 036 cats
«Genetic epidemiology of blood type, disease and trait variants, and genome-wide genetic diversity in over 11,000 domestic cats» Anderson et al 2022 Heidi Anderson at WisdomPanel/MyCatDNA and her colleagues have just published the largest cat study to date on cats genetics. 11036 cats, 90 breeds/types, a total of 10419 pedigree cats, 617 cats housecats/non-pedigree were analyzed. Here are some short impressions with excerpts from the paper, which can be found in full-text here. Samples came from MyCatDNA and Optimal Selection Feline tests done between 2016 and 2021 (Wisdom Panel of Helsinki, Finland and Vancouver, WA, USA. The tested cats were from: USA (54.9%) Finland (17.4%) Canada (5.3%) United Kingdom (3.5%) Norway (3.5%) Sweden (3.3%) Russia (2.5%) France (1%) «The maximum number of different disease-associated variants present in a single breed was 9; this was observed in the Maine Coon, which was the breed that was represented by the most individuals (N = 1971) tested in this dataset.» (p 9) The cat fancy can learn a lot from the results. For instance it is clear that broad panel tests help breeders make good choices for combinations, without losing genetic variation in the breed. «For more than a decade, it has been common practice to eradicate disease-associated variants from pedigreed cat breeding populations using DNA testing. However, the focus on eradicating single DNA variants from a breed could contribute to severe loss of genetic diversity, especially if implemented strictly instead of thoughtfully.» (p 3) «Our data indicate that known disease-associated variant frequencies are now lower for many conditions (GM2 and Hypokalemia in Burmese, Glycogen Storage Disease in Norwegian Forest Cats, HCM and Spinal Muscular Atrophy in Maine Coon, HCM in Ragdoll and PKD in Persian) compared to the frequencies at the time of their discovery, perhaps reflecting change over time within the…
