How DNA Testing Works?

There are already countless of people who have tried DNA testing to find out about their ancestry. Because of this, testing kits are a lot more popular today than they were before. The truth is, back in 2018, there are more people who have used consumer DNA tests compared to the reports in previous years combined. Tons of people today are indulging in DNA testing that it’s speculated to grow to around 100 million users in the next couple of years.

There is no doubt with the hype but there is the question that most people asked, how DNA testing works?

Well, there’s no straightforward answer here because different companies have their proprietary algorithms in handling DNA data. If you’re interested to try DNA testing however, then there are a number of things that you must be aware about. First of all, DNA tests can be used in uncovering secrets or even discovering things that’s new even to you.

Where a person roughly came from, how closely you’re related to other members who are in the database and if you have specific traits are only few of the things that DNA tests can reveal. However, what you are going to get depends on what you’ve ordered but one thing’s for sure, you will learn whether you’re half of something and the other.

The DNAs basic building blocks are the person’s spit and the provider’s code. As for the spit, it’s pretty self-explanatory. You have to spit into a tube and send it back to the provider and then after, the provider will be extracting the DNA from the given sample and digitize it so it could be stored in the database and create a profile.

And right after it is digitized, the DNA will look like a string of 4 nucleobases of DNA which includes C, G, T and A. This is where the provider’s algorithms will kick in to perform DNA testing and it is where things are more complex.

The algorithms are so powerful that it can pull out C’s, G’s, T’s, and A’s. By finding patterns, they can then derive the meaning. Every company is using a pattern-spotting algorithm in which, everything remains a secret. The thing is, there are approximately 600,000 positions to which human DNA codes differ and this also referred to as single-nucleotide polymorphisms.

By the time when the DNA testing is done, it is forwarded to the DNA library where it is joined by other DNAs and from this point, it can tell you where your DNA came from.

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