DNA Connect

Connect with other cats through DNA.

A Digital "Catio"—and all genetically based!

With the DNA Connect service, an optional feature of our pet genetic tests, you can locate relatives of your cat and discover other pets that share its genes. Perhaps you'll even find a lost littermate or finally solve the mystery of your feline's origin.

View example

How do we search for their genetic family?

We understand your curiosity about how we turn a saliva sample into your cat's family history. How do we do it?

Identify

We obtain tens of thousands of genetic markers. We select specific regions of DNA that are key for kinship, as not all of the genome has the same importance for finding family.

Calculate

We compare these DNA fragments between your cat and the rest of the cats in our database. The higher the shared percentage, the closer the relationship.

Translate

We elaborate the results based on the previous analyses.

What relationships do we analyze?

We present the kinship and approximate percentage of shared DNA as follows:

Identical twins

100% shared DNA

First-degree relationship

Fathers and sons

50% shared DNA

First-degree relationship

Brothers (same litter)

50% shared DNA

First-degree relationship

Stepbrothers, grandparents/grandchildren, uncles/nephews

25% shared DNA

Second-degree relationship

We make a difference

Simple.

DNA Connect is convenient and easy. Access the list of related cats and contact their humans. Our messaging system is so simple your pets would send meows if they knew how to write.

Reliable.

Our challenge is to ensure real kinship. We do not seek to offer you hundreds of distant relatives without rigor; we prefer quality and precision to avoid false matches.

Free.

This tool has no additional costs. With the purchase of your Starter or Advanced kits, you have free access to DNA Connect forever.

Sure.

We respect privacy more than cats themselves. We use security protocols and strictly comply with European data protection regulations. If you prefer not to participate in the "Catio," you can disable it.

Reliability as a priority: Feline Genetics

Our interest is that the results are robust. For this reason, we do not determine kinship beyond the second degree.

As a rule, we interpret mixed-breed cats with shared DNA percentages similarly to calculations performed in humans. 100% similarity would imply identical twins, while 50% would imply siblings or parents and children from the same litter. It is not an exact match, but an extrapolation that we make to facilitate understanding of the results.

However, for purebred cats, additional considerations must be made, given that animals of the same breed have a greater genetic similarity among them.

Although they may not be purebred, cats often have a greater number of offspring throughout their lives, in different litters and with different partners (even within the same litter!). All of this causes their kinship relationships to have a high complexity and we prefer that their Homo sapiens companions be aware of these details in the results.

So, the feline family isn't the same as the human one?

An important detail we want to emphasize is that the family results we offer in cats are similar, but not the same, as in humans. To simplify your understanding, we show them in the same way that relationships would be in humans, but it is not exact.

The terminology we use in DNA Connect to establish relationships between cats has been established from a genetic point of view. They may diverge from commonly used social concepts.

The basis of kinship studies are the DNA fragments that two individuals share. Even more information is obtained by knowing the chromosomal location of identical fragments. This is how relationships are established in people.

However, in cats, we find, frequently, that individuals of both sexes have different reproductive partners throughout their lives. Added to the fact that many breeds have low initial genetic diversity. This behavior means that we cannot understand their results in the same way as human results.

In summary, our results are indicated as the genetic kinship relationships among cats. They are similar, but not identical, to kinship relationships in humans, and are subject to a broader interpretation.

DNA Connect

Connect with other cats through DNA.

A Digital "Catio"—and all genetically based!

How do we search for their genetic family?

We understand your curiosity about how we turn a saliva sample into your cat's family history. How do we do it?

Identify

Calculate

Translate

What relationships do we analyze?

We present the kinship and approximate percentage of shared DNA as follows:

We make a difference

Simple.

Reliable.

Free.

Sure.

Reliability as a priority: Feline Genetics

So, the feline family isn't the same as the human one?

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