Posted By: SugaWhit
Glider Genetics and Thoughts- (novel!) - 10/08/09 09:37 PM
Not sure how else to word that-
I am going to be doing a whole bunch of copy and pasting from the other thread, as what I am trying to explain is being perfectly mangled by misunderstandings- so please bear with me-
My original post, and point, was to say that the idea of inbreeding the lines to the point of obvious defects was not a truly nes idea or practice.
Having experience in labs, I can tell you that rats and mice are very different then gliders in many many ways.
Here's my original post-
"I can honestly see where GliderFun is coming from, my answer to this problem is not to breed out, but to test.
I really think that the best way, without harming or breeding any more gliders, to figure out what we have both color and health wise is to establish a genetic "norm" (say standard healthy grey glider) and go from there.
(What I am saying here, is Not that we can establish a genome test, but instead know what true normal is, and trace back. This would only be possible if many many people joined together and registered their gliders DNA, so we Could trace back to see what animals crop up again and again with problems.
In horses, we DNA every single animal when we register it. That way we can be sure that the sire is the sire, etc. Also, when problems show up, we can know exactly Who the parents were and trace back.
Impressive and HYPP is a classic example of a very famous and popular sire who had hundreds of foals, who all won a bunch, and then They had foals, etc etc.
In the end, the diesase proved traceable directly To this One horse, and we now test every horse from that line.
It's prevented hundredes of deaths and awful lives for horses. Of course there are some that still do breed these horses as the extra muscle associated with the genetic fault make for 1st place in the halter ring.
We now have a test for HYPP, but in the beginning, just knowing the common sire was enough.)
_______________________________________________________
Leu, Mosaic, (a pattern I mentally think of as tobiano/overo as I am a horse person) and creamino (again, in my head, buckskin. Hilarious no?)
We already do necropsies, the extra step of sending off dna material to be examined isn't far fetched. We do it in horses all the time.
Liver, eye, and kidney issues, I don't know if we could ever isolate to a strong degree without some very obvious gene abnormality, and a bunch more money.
I cannot strees the above enough. My point in saying what I have and did was Not to have such hubris to pretend that we will be able to isolate the genetic markers of bad news, but instead to know who and where the lines come from, and who's parent is Really each parent. This will enable us to predict bad news, as we could trace back to certian parents. (See the above example, Impressive.)
But color and linkage of genes via expression of them I think is very viable, and would give you a much better chance of knowing Far more then what inbreeding would do.
Agin, I feel that it's not a far fetched idea, color is a much easier allele to isolate and identify. Hence why we can do so much color testing in birds and in horses.
I have a Leu paired with a 100% het. As they are well bred out, I personally have no problem with it. I can however, concede that further out crossing are needed far more then bringing the lines in, and am currently working to that end on my Creamino/het pairs future crossings.
I would much rather it be like in horses, and we can track the animals parentage not by what the breeder thinks, or remembers, but by fact. Same with color-
I want to see a place where we can genetically test for who's parent is who's, and what glider carries which gene, expressed or not, as coming from a medical background, things like the 50% het I have in my siggy kinda make my head hurt.
The glider either Has or doesn't have the gene, the "%" were put in place to help make money and track the lines.
Everyone got all excited about this one. You can't tell me that it honestly makes More sense to just do an accurate, but still only a chance, percentage- makes More sense then trying for a genetic test and be Sure.
I have talked to lots of breeders on here, and many will concede that selling hets, at what ever percentage under a 100% does play out for more money for them, but that is only to protect them as well.
I am note disagreeing with this practice, however, wouldn't it be nice to know exactly what you are getting? Wouldn't it be nice to know that the parent of that glider was really a Creamino or a Leu? I don't doubt one litte bit that my little boy is a 100% het, but I bought from someone I trusted. Same with my "50%"- I do feel that her lines are true, but would I rather know that she was a in fact a het via testing and have paid more? You bet!
My problem is no one is interested in Really doing all the homework, as the time/money/gliders needed is magnicifient.
This point was proved endlessly in the other thread, but it's just silly. Just becuase we always Have done something one way, doesn't mean that that is the way is Should be done, or Could be done.
There are better ways out there to do things- We just need to band together as a community and put the time in.
If the miniature horse people can figure it out, we sure as heck can.
And as we don't Have a real central reg like the horse folks do, there isn't a group of people floating around with money and time and the animals best interest in mind to go to a college or a development lab and get the ball rolling. That would be a huge boon to all glider folks!
/end rant."
To go further-
Dancing wrote-
"Ok, providing I could find a lab/vet willing to check the dna on a glider to tell if it carries the leu gene, how many are willing to PAY the cost for that testing in addition to the cost of the glider?
(Whitney in here, Me for one, and many others I am sure!)
I'm betting not many. Most would rather have the percents and make their decisions based on chance.
(This is doing things the way we always have mind set that blocks any ideas of progress, or what Could be!)
I know that before, a low percent leu het was only margianally more than a grey.
I remember...
Leus were $2000-2200
100% hets were $1500
66% hets were $1000
50% hets were about $500-700
25% hets were about $300
and lower than that were MAYBE $50 more than the cost of a grey IF charged any extra at all.
And out of those, MANY of the "12% hets" proved out.
(Oh and about this time, the first Creamino was put up for sale at the grand cost of $10,000!)"
Else where in the thread-
Gliderplayroom wrote-
"You're basically talking about putting a 8-10 week old joey under anesthetic, dangerous in itself, and drawing blood, just so you can know if you're buying a het or not. IMO? THAT is barbaric. Not to mention the many, many gliders that would have to be subjected to extensive testing to have a basis to compare to begin with."
-No, no I am Not talking about putting a joey 'under', and I am not sure why this thought was put together to be honest.
The idea is not to put them under, but to obtain a blood or hair sample with DNA, we may even be able to swab gliders, but I'd have to do some homework on that idea.
As far as "just to know if you are getting a het"
No, not at all, That is just One of the nice things avaliable about testing and knowing the DNA present. Knowing who the gliders parents are for sure, and therefore any health risks/inbreeding, and Then color would be my personal order of go. The color will just be the easiest to identify, as I mentioned earlier.
Valkiremom wrote- (in response to Gliderfun)
"I'm unaware of a glider genome project. In fact, they haven't clearly linked genes to the diseases and conditions you mentioned in humans - for which there has been an active genome project for decades. We don't even understand all the color genetics for gliders, and now you want us to prevent obesity and liver failure?
May I gently suggest you start your own thread? When you say - Color should be a secondary thing - that could be right. However, THIS thread is about Leu to Leu breeding. So, for the purpose of this discussion, Color is Primary, not secondary."
Point taken as far as the new thread, thank you, to continue with your post, there Is no such thing, nor was it mentioned.
In fact if you read above, I clearly stated that the idea of being able to identify gene markers for said diseases would be pretty impossible unless the defects manifested themselves in a very obvious manner. (LWO is a great example of that btw.)
The fact that we don't understand all the glider color genetics is what is driving me to sit here and try and go through all this. We should know all this and test gliders.
She went further on to say -
"Could I please just restate that the genetics garbage is NOT part of the original topic?
The direction the thread has taken ... genetics, inbreeding, a glider genome project, etc ... can all be discussed on some other thread. (for the record, I don't know why someone thinks identifying specific genes is even possible!)
*Whitney in again, it's been proven, we can test for many many genetic markers, Downs is one in people that most are familar with, that is a really simple genetic.*
THIS thread is about breeding Leu to Leu. I believe Beth's original question was something along the lines of... have the LEU lines been bred out far enough so that we can now begin breeding leu to leu safely?
Anyone care to comment on that?
I agree that more needs to be said about any truth to the Leu to Leu cross equaling trouble. I felt that tied in nicely with the idea of genetic testing as if there Were any issues, you would be able to see them right off the bat, in easy to read lines.
(Well easy with the training- which is pretty simple honestly!)
Sooooo discuss-
I am going to be doing a whole bunch of copy and pasting from the other thread, as what I am trying to explain is being perfectly mangled by misunderstandings- so please bear with me-
My original post, and point, was to say that the idea of inbreeding the lines to the point of obvious defects was not a truly nes idea or practice.
Having experience in labs, I can tell you that rats and mice are very different then gliders in many many ways.
Here's my original post-
"I can honestly see where GliderFun is coming from, my answer to this problem is not to breed out, but to test.
I really think that the best way, without harming or breeding any more gliders, to figure out what we have both color and health wise is to establish a genetic "norm" (say standard healthy grey glider) and go from there.
(What I am saying here, is Not that we can establish a genome test, but instead know what true normal is, and trace back. This would only be possible if many many people joined together and registered their gliders DNA, so we Could trace back to see what animals crop up again and again with problems.
In horses, we DNA every single animal when we register it. That way we can be sure that the sire is the sire, etc. Also, when problems show up, we can know exactly Who the parents were and trace back.
Impressive and HYPP is a classic example of a very famous and popular sire who had hundreds of foals, who all won a bunch, and then They had foals, etc etc.
In the end, the diesase proved traceable directly To this One horse, and we now test every horse from that line.
It's prevented hundredes of deaths and awful lives for horses. Of course there are some that still do breed these horses as the extra muscle associated with the genetic fault make for 1st place in the halter ring.
We now have a test for HYPP, but in the beginning, just knowing the common sire was enough.)
_______________________________________________________
Leu, Mosaic, (a pattern I mentally think of as tobiano/overo as I am a horse person) and creamino (again, in my head, buckskin. Hilarious no?)
We already do necropsies, the extra step of sending off dna material to be examined isn't far fetched. We do it in horses all the time.
Liver, eye, and kidney issues, I don't know if we could ever isolate to a strong degree without some very obvious gene abnormality, and a bunch more money.
I cannot strees the above enough. My point in saying what I have and did was Not to have such hubris to pretend that we will be able to isolate the genetic markers of bad news, but instead to know who and where the lines come from, and who's parent is Really each parent. This will enable us to predict bad news, as we could trace back to certian parents. (See the above example, Impressive.)
But color and linkage of genes via expression of them I think is very viable, and would give you a much better chance of knowing Far more then what inbreeding would do.
Agin, I feel that it's not a far fetched idea, color is a much easier allele to isolate and identify. Hence why we can do so much color testing in birds and in horses.
I have a Leu paired with a 100% het. As they are well bred out, I personally have no problem with it. I can however, concede that further out crossing are needed far more then bringing the lines in, and am currently working to that end on my Creamino/het pairs future crossings.
I would much rather it be like in horses, and we can track the animals parentage not by what the breeder thinks, or remembers, but by fact. Same with color-
I want to see a place where we can genetically test for who's parent is who's, and what glider carries which gene, expressed or not, as coming from a medical background, things like the 50% het I have in my siggy kinda make my head hurt.
The glider either Has or doesn't have the gene, the "%" were put in place to help make money and track the lines.
Everyone got all excited about this one. You can't tell me that it honestly makes More sense to just do an accurate, but still only a chance, percentage- makes More sense then trying for a genetic test and be Sure.
I have talked to lots of breeders on here, and many will concede that selling hets, at what ever percentage under a 100% does play out for more money for them, but that is only to protect them as well.
I am note disagreeing with this practice, however, wouldn't it be nice to know exactly what you are getting? Wouldn't it be nice to know that the parent of that glider was really a Creamino or a Leu? I don't doubt one litte bit that my little boy is a 100% het, but I bought from someone I trusted. Same with my "50%"- I do feel that her lines are true, but would I rather know that she was a in fact a het via testing and have paid more? You bet!
My problem is no one is interested in Really doing all the homework, as the time/money/gliders needed is magnicifient.
This point was proved endlessly in the other thread, but it's just silly. Just becuase we always Have done something one way, doesn't mean that that is the way is Should be done, or Could be done.
There are better ways out there to do things- We just need to band together as a community and put the time in.
If the miniature horse people can figure it out, we sure as heck can.
And as we don't Have a real central reg like the horse folks do, there isn't a group of people floating around with money and time and the animals best interest in mind to go to a college or a development lab and get the ball rolling. That would be a huge boon to all glider folks!
/end rant."
To go further-
Dancing wrote-
"Ok, providing I could find a lab/vet willing to check the dna on a glider to tell if it carries the leu gene, how many are willing to PAY the cost for that testing in addition to the cost of the glider?
(Whitney in here, Me for one, and many others I am sure!)
I'm betting not many. Most would rather have the percents and make their decisions based on chance.
(This is doing things the way we always have mind set that blocks any ideas of progress, or what Could be!)
I know that before, a low percent leu het was only margianally more than a grey.
I remember...
Leus were $2000-2200
100% hets were $1500
66% hets were $1000
50% hets were about $500-700
25% hets were about $300
and lower than that were MAYBE $50 more than the cost of a grey IF charged any extra at all.
And out of those, MANY of the "12% hets" proved out.
(Oh and about this time, the first Creamino was put up for sale at the grand cost of $10,000!)"
Else where in the thread-
Gliderplayroom wrote-
"You're basically talking about putting a 8-10 week old joey under anesthetic, dangerous in itself, and drawing blood, just so you can know if you're buying a het or not. IMO? THAT is barbaric. Not to mention the many, many gliders that would have to be subjected to extensive testing to have a basis to compare to begin with."
-No, no I am Not talking about putting a joey 'under', and I am not sure why this thought was put together to be honest.
The idea is not to put them under, but to obtain a blood or hair sample with DNA, we may even be able to swab gliders, but I'd have to do some homework on that idea.
As far as "just to know if you are getting a het"
No, not at all, That is just One of the nice things avaliable about testing and knowing the DNA present. Knowing who the gliders parents are for sure, and therefore any health risks/inbreeding, and Then color would be my personal order of go. The color will just be the easiest to identify, as I mentioned earlier.
Valkiremom wrote- (in response to Gliderfun)
"I'm unaware of a glider genome project. In fact, they haven't clearly linked genes to the diseases and conditions you mentioned in humans - for which there has been an active genome project for decades. We don't even understand all the color genetics for gliders, and now you want us to prevent obesity and liver failure?
May I gently suggest you start your own thread? When you say - Color should be a secondary thing - that could be right. However, THIS thread is about Leu to Leu breeding. So, for the purpose of this discussion, Color is Primary, not secondary."
Point taken as far as the new thread, thank you, to continue with your post, there Is no such thing, nor was it mentioned.
In fact if you read above, I clearly stated that the idea of being able to identify gene markers for said diseases would be pretty impossible unless the defects manifested themselves in a very obvious manner. (LWO is a great example of that btw.)
The fact that we don't understand all the glider color genetics is what is driving me to sit here and try and go through all this. We should know all this and test gliders.
She went further on to say -
"Could I please just restate that the genetics garbage is NOT part of the original topic?
The direction the thread has taken ... genetics, inbreeding, a glider genome project, etc ... can all be discussed on some other thread. (for the record, I don't know why someone thinks identifying specific genes is even possible!)
*Whitney in again, it's been proven, we can test for many many genetic markers, Downs is one in people that most are familar with, that is a really simple genetic.*
THIS thread is about breeding Leu to Leu. I believe Beth's original question was something along the lines of... have the LEU lines been bred out far enough so that we can now begin breeding leu to leu safely?
Anyone care to comment on that?
I agree that more needs to be said about any truth to the Leu to Leu cross equaling trouble. I felt that tied in nicely with the idea of genetic testing as if there Were any issues, you would be able to see them right off the bat, in easy to read lines.
(Well easy with the training- which is pretty simple honestly!)
Sooooo discuss-