Sociality genes are associated with human-directed social behaviour in golden and Labrador retriever dogs.

Background: Dogs have human-directed social skills that allow them to communicate and cooperate with humans. We have previously identified two loci on chromosome 26 associated with human contact-seeking behaviors during an unsolvable problem task in laboratory beagles (Persson et al., 2016). The aim of the present study was to verify the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in additional dog breeds. We also studied how the allele frequencies have changed during domestication and recent selection.

Methods: Dogs of two breeds, 61 golden retrievers and 100 Labrador retrievers, were phenotyped and genotyped, and 19 wolves were genotyped. The Labrador retrievers were divided into common and field type by pedigree data to make it possible to study the effects of recent selection. All dogs were tested in an unsolvable problem task where human-directed social behaviors were scored. DNA from dogs (buccal swabs) and wolves (blood or brain tissue) was analyzed for genotype on two of the previously identified SNP markers, BICF2G630798942 (SNP1) and BICF2S23712114 (SNP2), by pyrosequencing.

Results: There was genetic variation for SNP1 in both dog breeds whereas the wolves were fixed for this polymorphism, and for SNP2 there was variation in both dogs and wolves. For both SNPs, Labrador retriever types differed significantly in allele frequencies. We found associations between SNPs and human-directed social behavior in both dog breeds. In golden retrievers, SNP1 was associated with physical contact variables, for example, with the duration of physical contact with the owner ( F 2,56 = 4.389, p = 0.017). SNP2 was associated with several behavioral variables in both breeds, among others owner gazing frequency in both golden retrievers ( F 2,55 = 6.330, p = 0.003) and Labradors ( F 1,93 = 5.209, p = 0.025).

Discussion: Our results verify the association between the previously identified SNPs and human-directed social behavior scored in an unsolvable problem task. Differences in allele frequencies suggest that these loci have been affected by selection. The results indicate that these genomic regions are involved in human-directed social behavior in not only beagles but in other dog breeds as well. We hypothesize that they may have been important during dog domestication.