Large genetic study finds little evidence that DNA drives dog ownership
Researchers analyzed nearly 100,000 people across Scandinavia and the UK to find genetic factors influencing dog ownership, but discovered only weak genetic signals and no specific genes responsible. The null result suggests pet ownership is driven primarily by social and economic factors rather than inherited biology—important context for pet industry planners and public health researchers studying pet-related interventions.
Originaltitel: The genetic architecture of dog ownership: large-scale genome-wide association study in 97,552 European-ancestry individuals
<p>Dog ownership has been associated with several complex traits and there is evidence of genetic influence. We performed a genome-wide association study of dog ownership through meta-analysis of 31,566 Swedish twins in five discovery cohorts and additional 65,986 European-ancestry individuals in three replication cohorts from Sweden, Norway, and the UK. Association test with >7.4 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms were meta-analyzed using a fixed effect model after controlling for population structure and relatedness. We identified two suggestive loci using discovery cohorts, which did not reach genome-wide significance after meta-analysis with replication cohorts. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms-based heritability of dog ownership using linkage disequilibrium score regression was estimated at 0.123 (CI 0.038-0.207) using the discovery cohorts and 0.018 (CI -0.002, 0.039) when adding in replication cohorts. Negative genetic correlation with complex traits including type 2 diabetes, depression, neuroticism and asthma was only found using discovery summary data. Furthermore, we did not identify any genes/gene-sets reaching even suggestive level of significance. This genome-wide association study does not, by itself, provide clear evidence on common genetic variants that influence the dog ownership among European-ancestry individuals.</p>