Reptile & Amphibian Forums

How expensive do you guys think this would be? I mean you can easily test a humans blood type or check for diabetes or even HIV. How hard would it be to test a melanin count in an animal or even its genetics? Ive been prodding my father with these questions and he is trying to figure this out (biologist/chemist/genetics masters). If there is a way to do this possible hets would be a thing of the past. Im so intrigued by this i need a answer. Thoughts?
Joe

I think the problem in testing for hets would be that you would need to find the gene responsible out of a huge number of genes and then develop a probe to test for it. I'm sure that with enough time and money it could be done I'm just not sure if it's yet economical. Could a test be developed quickly and cheaply enough to out pace the dropping price of a new morph (at some point it wouldn’t be worth it to test possible hets)?

I've also wondered about paternity testing to certify hets aren't from retained sperm or parthenogenesis. I don't know but hope that this might be a more generic test that could be quickly and economically applied to ball pythons. If anyone has the know-how this might be a good business. I mean, if you are going to pay thousands for a het maybe the buyer or the seller would be willing to pay $100 for a paternity test to have it certified.

It would be far too expensive to determine which mutated gene is causing the mutation, and then to test for it. Even in albinos, when it's assumed that the protein tyrosinase is mutated, the cost would probably still be prohibitively high. In the examples that were given for diabetes and HIV, genes aren't actually tested for--the presence of other things is tested. I think that the paternity tests that were mentioned would be a much more probable, maybe still not very likely though, alternative.

Jake

There's an experiment called electrophoresis or something like that (I think) where you take DNA (which can be extracted easily in a number of different ways), combine it with a certain enzyme that cuts it apart, place it in gel with little wells for each sample, and then run elctricty through it. When you look at the gel the next day, you can see patterns of thick and thin lines unique to each DNA sample. The trick would be to find a match between a definite het and possible het for a certain gene in this pattern (for example, the distance between lines being the same). Like Randy said, though, there are hundreds of thousands of genes, and you could go through countless different enzymes to isolate the trait you want. However, if you got lucky and found the enzyme that cut that trait out of the DNA and were able to make a match between a definite and possible het, it would be worth it.
Gibby Wright
gwright86@comcast.net

What im interested in is if the normals and hets wopuld have different melanin counts in their blood. If you could establish a set pattern of a different ratio from normal to het that could be the answer there. Im not positive if the melanin deficiency in albino's for example is completely eliminated or if the melanin is dormant. If the melanin is dormant it should differ from the amount that would get into a normal BP's system. Well im probabaly talking in cirlces of incoherence but melanin tests are simple and cheap enough maybe one day ill go experimenting.

Why would there be? Something that is simple recessive does not display the trait...why then would there be any difference in the melanin count?

And Gibby...keep dreaming...you are way oversimplifying electrophoresis...I've done MANY southern and western blot tests and you have to know what gene you are looking for. We don't even know what chromosome most of these mutations are on.

Take care.
matt

But could you do a test for paternity without a lot of research into specific ball python genes? I'm thinking that would be a lot easier than finding individual mutations and might still have a nitch for certifying those that are already being sold as 100% hets.