Photo by Sophie Verney

A few months ago, a European breeder asked us about the “DEPOH” test being offered by Laboklin, a testing lab based in Germany. We asked Dr. Court whether Laboklin had been licensed for the DEPOHGEN™* test, and the answer was NO. In fact, currently there are NO labs licensed for the DEPOHGEN™ test. Here’s what Dr. Court had to say:

The test being offered by Laboklin is not the DEPOHGEN™ test. Consequently, I am unable to say whether their test is accurate or is giving misleading results. Genetic tests can only be verified through a validation process that involves sharing and testing the same DNA samples in a reference lab (my lab in this case) and the new test lab. I am willing to do that as part of a licensing agreement between WSU and a genetic testing company. We did communicate with Laboklin last year about licensing, but they did not respond to our offer.

This is not a minor issue. There are many companies out there reading papers and offering tests. I would hate for an owner to receive a false negative result, have a bleeding issue, and then have the company complain that the test itself doesn’t work.

This is what happened when Dr. Katrina Mealey started offering the MDR1 test [a genetic test for a condition where affected dogs can have adverse reactions to certain drugs—as you can read here, Deerhounds do not have this health condition]. She had several dog owners and vets write to complain that the MDR1 test didn’t predict the adverse reaction to a chemotherapy drug in their dogs. In each case, the dog had been tested at “another lab”—and when she retested the DNA samples in her lab she found out all of those dogs had the MDR1 mutation.  

Genetic testing in animals is completely unregulated, and anyone can offer a test. Many testing companies run linkage tests instead of testing for specific mutations, and linkage tests are not as accurate. All of the animal genetic testing companies in the USA (and probably elsewhere) post disclaimers on their website indicating that they do not guarantee accuracy of test results and therefore have no liability for injury resulting from inaccurate results.

Currently, the only lab that runs a verified DEPOHGEN™ test is Washington State University’s lab.

WSU can validate testing from labs anywhere in the world. Owners can ask the testing company they want to use to license the DEPOHGEN™ test. If enough owners make validation a condition of use, that will give the lab the confidence to pay for the validation—because it will attract enough business to make it worthwhile. As more breeds include DEPOH in their testing, that will also help.

* ​​As part of the patent agreement between WSU and the SDCA, a small royalty from DEPOHGEN™ test sales will be returned to the SDCA.