4 ms·
23andme looks for specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) so it’s completely unsuitable for looking for this kind of DNA alteration that could be anywhe
by pja 3y ago
23andme looks for specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) so it’s completely unsuitable for looking for this kind of DNA alteration that could be anywhere in the genome.
- tomrod 3y agoThank you for the correction. How would you look for DNA alteration, generally?
- mnw21cam 3y agoWhole genome sequencing of some kind, preferably one of the newfangled long-read technologies such as Oxford Nanopore or Pacbio, would be best for looking for novel insertions into the genome. However, this is likely to be a fool's errand in this case, because this kind of sequencing normally assumes that we can take a sample of many cells from the body, and that all those cells have the exact same DNA changes. If you have a mutation that is induced in a parent or the single-figure-cell stage of embryo development then that will be true, but for DNA modification by a virus in an adult it will not be. Each cell will have a different insertion. Now, there are some techniques that can sequence the DNA from a single cell, but they don't give quite as good quality data, and because you'd be wanting to sample a good number of cells to see what the distribution of insertions is, it will likely also be very expensive.