Blog

Today, we’re decoding one of the mysteries of genetics that relates to your Basepaws DNA report of results. It's called epistasis. When epistasis occurs, the observable expression (phenotype) of a gene—such as one responsible for the color of your kitty's coat—gets modified in some way by a completely different gene that has the ability to mask, suppress, or inhibit how that coat color gene is expressed. Epistasis helps explain why sometimes you may get a “likely to have” result for a genetic trait in your cat’s Basepaws report that doesn’t quite match up with their physical appearance.

From time to time, we update the Basepaws digital report of results for our Breed + Health Cat DNA Test. Today, we’d like to take a moment to share some details about two recent changes to our report—one for a genetic health marker linked to the common cat heart condition hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and one for a genetic trait marker associated with the Siamese colorpoint coat pattern.

You may find your cat is rubbing one of their eyes with a paw, or notice that their eye looks red and inflamed. This is a sign that your feline friend may be suffering from cat conjunctivitis. You may be asking yourself, “does my cat have pink eye?” Continue reading to find out more about cat conjunctivitis, also called pink eye—everything from how to recognize signs of this condition to what causes it and how to treat it.