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I am not biologist (that is the following is pure speculation based on ignorance) but it feels to me that the method of their cloning leaves in opportunity of m
by eveningcoffee 9y ago
I am not biologist (that is the following is pure speculation based on ignorance) but it feels to me that the method of their cloning leaves in opportunity of minute changes in the offspring DNA.
This then still leaves open possibility that different behaviour is cause by genetic mutations but this variation it much more amplified that presumed previously.
I would be happy if somebody with more knowledge finds time to comment on this.
- jacquesm 9y agoWould a DNA sequence comparison on the clones not be sufficient to rule out such a basic mistake?
- eveningcoffee 9y agoYes, it should, but how precise is this method and does it take the full DNA into account? Edit: the fish reproduces gynogenetically, that is the offspring contains only maternal DNA. But this does not mean that mutations in DNA do not occur. They also say to use genetic sampling which translates into my understanding as an approximate method.
- gwern 9y agoNo, because DNA sequencing has lots of errors in it. This is why you might've seen numbers like '30x' or '50x coverage': to get a decent sequence, it gets done again and again and hopefully the random errors wash out. Identical twins or clones are not perfectly genetically identical, but the differences are so rare that any difference in your sequence is almost certainly a sequencing error unless you do an expensive number of passes like 70x costing several times as much. Interestingly, this comes up a lot in criminal contexts now, since you can, if you want to spend the money, figure out which of two identical twins left DNA at a crime scene.