For the past several days I have struggled with whether
or not I was going to publish this post. After talking with several friends, and watching others I know become
confused over the science, the decision was made for me. I think it is time for a lesson in genetics
on how it can or can’t affect us.
On 14 June 2014 there was a
blog post by Michael J. Leclerc about a genetic condition that can occur in humans. To say it caused undue stress, hand-wringing, and
confusion is an understatement. Just
read the comments and the comments on the re-posts of the article. The title, unfortunately, may be part of the
problem, I mean can DNA lie to you? You see DNA doesn't lie but it
sure as heck can be misinterpreted if it is not read by a person who completely
understands what they are looking at.
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Image from the Library of Congress |
The people he talks about in the post are Chimeras. No, they are not the creatures from mythology,
but something that a lot of non-geneticists struggle to understand. Essentially being a Chimera means that one person has 2 sets of DNA in their
body. For example, the stomach may be
genetically different than the skin. It
seems fantastical, but yet, it does happen. In fact, many doctors believe that it may happen more often than people
realize.
I won’t bore you here with a lot of the technical information. Trust me I could go on for pages about the
types of Chimeras, how they forms, why they forms, and how many of them have absolutely
no idea. Instead there is a list at the
end of this post for further reading. If
you are really interested, please go read up on it.
What I will do is explain how being a chimera will have absolutely
no impact on your genealogy testing. OK,
let that sink in a second. This
condition will NOT affect your genealogy.
Some of you may be shaking your heads, trying to understand
how having 2 sets of DNA won’t throw something for a loop. Simply put, you are the product of you
parents. All of the DNA within your body
came from 2 cells: an egg and a sperm. ALL
OF THE DNA. This means, for genealogy
purposes you can still take genetic genealogy tests if you are a Chimera because even though you have more than one set of DNA it all came from the same 2 people.
Since I am trying to not go really in depth with the science
in this post I am going to leave that here for now. If you are really intrigued, please contact
me or leave me a message and I will go into further detailed explanations.
Things I could say if I was a Chimera:
ReplyDelete"See, Grandma -- I told you my skin was more like you than my stomach!"
LOL
Seriously, though. Good post and thank you for putting it out there. Chimeras have always fascinated me, but it is a weird concept for many people to get.
--Elizabeth
Hahaha, that's funny!
DeleteIt is an odd concept, and at times really hard for people who don't live and breathe genetics to understand. That is why I thought it odd to put it out on a genealogy board. Why confuse people anymore more? It is a cool and interesting subject, but now those who are confused about genetics to start with will blame anything "off" on the science is still developing. No, not quite.