There are huge business opportunities for dog genetic testing.

Originally published as Pet genomics medicine runs wild on July 25, 2018 in Nature, Lisa Moses (research fellow at harvard medical school's Center for Bioethics, and practicing veterinarian at MSPCA-Angell Animal Medical Center for pain and palliative care services), Steve Niemi (Director and Veterinary Physician, Harvard University, Usain Karlsson, Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts, Massachusetts, MT.
Lisa Moses, Steve Niemi and Elinor Karlsson warn that the mixed market environment is too prone to false results.
they called for greater supervision.
last year, a 13-year-old pet dog named Petunia began walking erratically and without bowel control.
her owner was so worried that she bought a $65 genetic testing service at a company that directly confronted consumers (DTC).
tests showed that the harba dog carried a genetic mutation associated with neurodegenerative disease, similar to human amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or motor neurone disease).
spend on pets is on the rise globally.
published data show that dogs that detect the genetic mutation are only 1 per cent more likely to actually get the disease, and that Petunia's symptoms are consistent with treatable spinal lesions.
her master chose to euthanize Petunia because she was convinced that if she did not, Petunia could suffer sexual lyson and irreversible paralysis and die in pain.
genetic testing services for pets are expanding.
has now hundreds of thousands of dogs undergoing genetic testing, such as Petunia, and companies have begun offering similar tests for cats.
but the scientific progress behind pet genetic testing services is lagging behind.
most of the tests rely on small-scale studies that lack evidence.
neither the accuracy of the test results nor the implications for the health of the pet have been verified.
most veterinarians know little about the limitations of these studies or the general geneticknowledge of them, so they cannot make appropriate recommendations for pet owners.
the genetic testing of pets must be regulated, some companies will continue to profit from the sale of information that can be misleading or even inaccurate; pets and their owners will continue to suffer unnecessarily; and we will lose the opportunity to improve pet health and even use dog and cat research to promote human health.
could eventually lead to growing distrust of science and medicine.
the science behind pet genetic testing is less than 14 percent higher global pet consumption over the past five years (see Animal Lovers), which currently costs about $109 billion a year to treat pets worldwide.
pet care industry is booming, and genetic testing is one of the industry's newest services.
worldwide, at least 19 laboratories are selling pet genetic testing products.
some veterinarians use these genetic tests to aid disease diagnosis, or recommend expensive tests for healthy pets, sometimes even invasive, such as bone marrow biopsies.
some dog owners will also look at these test results in an attempt to reduce the incidence of genetic diseases.
at least one u.S. veterinary hospital recommends genetic testing of all dogs, saying that reference to genetic test results can lead to "personalized health care" and guide behavioral training.
we think there are three main problems with pet genetic testing.
lack of validation.
Mapping genetic variation to the risk of disease in both humans and other animals can be challenging.
but most genetic testing of dogs is based on research on candidate genes, which is inherently problematic.
in these studies, researchers typically tested genes from multiple humans or animals in the hope of finding mutations that are consistent with both expected genetic patterns and possibly disease-related, such as the mutation that affects protein structure.
In human studies, less than 2% of the results of candidate genetic studies have stood up to further tests of more advanced methods, such as genome-wide association studies.
Because of these defects, geneticists studying humans must now provide more evidence that a genetic mutation can "cause disease."
through the industry, academia, doctors, patients of all parties to work together, now identified each clinical mutation of human will have a level, from "pathogenic" to "benign" a total of five levels.
(clinical mutations are those associated with medically important epitopes.)
) All that is needed for genetic testing of a dog is a cheek swab.
but candidate genetic research in the field of veterinary medicine has not been re-evaluated so carefully. Most of the more than 200 genetic tests provided by
were based on a single small-scale candidate gene study.
these findings and related background information are largely private.
companies followed dogs that had genetic tests to check for accuracy, but these were case reports, involving a small number of dogs that were not at all the scale of reliable results that could provide statistically significant results.
inaccurate test results or interpretations.
an analysis of direct consumer-facing results provided by human genetic testing companies found that 40 percent of the genetic mutations indicated by human genetic testing were inaccurate.
these companies report other mutations that may increase the risk of disease, other independent laboratories say they are benign.
, genetic testing companies do not screen all known disease-related mutations in any gene, so their reporting of susceptibility to disease is incomplete.
now face the same problem with pet DTC products.
for example, many companies now screen dogs for mutations in the ABCB1 gene, which is associated with whether dogs have allergic reactions to a variety of common drugs.
study found that three mutations in this gene site were associated with allergy-prone physiques, but genetic testing companies tested only one of them.
, even if the gene company's report claims that a dog has no problem at a gene site, the dog may have a known pathogenic mutation in the gene, although the company's tests did not include the mutation.
conflict sour.
there are many potential conflicts of interest in making money from pet owners in the absence of effective industry self-regulation and government regulation.
for example, a database of pet healthcare companies could be used to identify dog breeds.
, the company, which owns the database, may notify its clinics to perform genetic tests on dogs for a particular disease, even if the medical value of the test is unclear.
if the genetic report is positive, the clinic's veterinarianmay recommend preventive measures such as eating specific pet foods (produced by the same company), conducting regular screening tests (conducted by the same company's clinical laboratory), and more frequent tests (at the company's veterinary clinic), even though the dog itself may not have a risk of developing the disease or has a very low risk.
data tsunami company's prior agreement does contain a number of provisions that may be at risk for interpreting genetic results.
but it's clear that the company's warning isn't as prominent as their publicity about the significance of the test results.
companies are often vague about what mutations are included in the testing program, even in their publications.
all this is worrying, as the field of veterinary medicine is about to see the impact of a tsunami of genomic data.
currently, pet owners can buy genetic testing services directly from the company, which claims to include the risk of more than 100 different diseases for pets, which can cost less than $200, and some packages include a "health report" for veterinary reference.
within the next five years, pet owners will be able to choose to test any pet genome-wide, the same technology that is currently used in human medicine.
this will not only accelerate the diagnosis of genetically based animal diseases, but will even promote the development of pet gene editing.
in general, genetic testing can be used to assess the risk of common diseases in pets, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and epilepsy, if large-scale and credible studies have been included in thousands of animals.
the use of pets is increasing in preclinical and clinical studies aimed at promoting human health.
For certain diseases, such as cancer and diabetes, researchers are sometimes more likely to use dogs than laboratory rodents as models.
Although it is difficult to control environmental variables and ensure adequate experimental objects when using dogs as experimental animals, the advantages are also obvious, and dogs can provide a model of natural pathogenesis that is closer to humans.
, pet owners voluntarily enroll their pets in the study, but will continue to feed and care for them at home.
can thus save money while circumventing many regulations on animal experimentation.
this approach requires that the scientific rationale behind pet genetics be very solid.
the Current U.S. and European Union do not have effective regulation of pet genetic testing, mainly because the current regulation of pet care is mainly focused on treatment rather than diagnosis.
As far as we know, neither the Fda nor the European Medicines Agency (EMA) currently provides quality standards for pet genetic testing, nor has it sought public opinion on the pros and cons of such genetic testing.
in order to bring pet genetic testing into the regulatory scope, we propose the following five measures.
set the standard.
all stakeholders, from pet owners to companies that provide genetic testing, to researchers and regulators, should work together to develop test ingons and test resultreporting standards.
specimens should be collected, stored, transported and analyzed in a specific manner;
genetic testing reports must be clear enough to inform the customer of possible deviations in easy-to-understand language at a particular location in the document.
organizations such as the World Small Animal Veterinary Association could take the lead in meetings to achieve this goal.
prepare a guide.
some stakeholders, including those conducting genetic testing, could work together to develop guidelines that would identify the criteria to be applied.
such a document is similar to the code of ethics for the application of innovative technologies for experimental animal research developed by the Scientific Subcommittee of the British Association of Small Animal Veterinary Surgeons.
ideally, the guidelines will have global impact, and with the popularity of pet genetic testing, they may eventually become law.
share data.
existing pet genetic databases established by industry, academia and government agencies should be shared by all parties, while measures need to be taken to ensure the confidentiality of pets and owners.
if the sample size required by the guidelines can only be achieved by pooling data, this will encourage genetic testing companies to share data.
stakeholders can use the knowledge and experience they have gained over the past two decades to study human genetics, and these scientists have been working to address data sharing and patient privacy issues.
leverage technical tools and expertise.
the field of pet genetics requires bioinformatics, machine learning-trained computer scientists, and others with big data expertise to manage and analyze large amounts of incoming information.
these people may be persuaded to enter this emerging field because of the potential economic benefits or the potential contribution of pet genetics to human disease.
train professional consultants.
needs to train a team of professional pet genetic counsellors who can be selected from veterinarians and other animal care personnel.
these professionals will provide support and advice to pet owners based on genetic test results, and are similar to human genetic counsellors at leading academic medical centers.
data ethics on pet genetic testing, and other issues that may require ongoing public discussion and the appointment of an expert advisory board.
For example, should for-profit pet detection companies have as unrestricted access to all the results they produce for internal use or sale to other pet medical companies as they do now? For example, if pet owners want to mate their pets and sell their cubs, can they keep the genetic test results confidential (as is the case), or should they be asked to inform the buyer of this information? In the United States alone, about 70% of households own pets.
genetic testing of pets may be more effective in supporting humans' use of genetic methods to treat diseases if they are done properly, but if mishandled, pet genetic testing may further undermine public trust in science.
Source: Nature Natural Research.