Can SNP genotyping (aka 23andme) be done on a sample taken while you have a cold?

I used to work for a company whose technology was directed at SNP detection. A cold will have no impact on your genotype. If you want to know more about why, keep asking.

Why does it not affect the results? Assume I know nothing on the subject…

The virus is infecting your cell but not integrating itself into your chromosomal DNA, which is what the SNP test will analyze. Without knowing a lot about this 23andme test, it could be a little bit of a scam. Some SNPs can certainly predispose you to diseases or other anolmalies, but what do you hope to gain from this test?

Neither a cold, nor the oral flora in your mouth will affect the results. 23andme uses the Illumina Bead Array that has human-DNA specific oligonucleotides arrayed on a chip. Even if viral (or bacterial) DNA is present in your sample, and is co-isolated with your human DNA, there is significant DNA sequence divergence so that neither bacterial nor viral DNA will hybridize to the chip. Only your genomic sequences will hybridize. Depending on your haplotype (i.e. which SNPs you have), your DNA will only hybridize to certain wells on the chip, resulting in your hapmap and thus 23andme’s ability to give you the information you desire (ancestry and/or health predictions). Of course, if you wanted to know what virus is co-habitating with you at the moment, you can turn to the virochip.

To clarify a few things: 1. some viruses do integrate into your genome 2. even if they do, it doesn’t matter for this assay (it does for your health, however), 3. it isn’t a scam.

@shilolo Is correct in that viruses like AIDS do incorporate themselves into your DNA, but the common cold is not such a virus. I was going for a simpler answer given that seemed what the asker wanted

On further research, I agree this is not a scam like some things I’ve seen regarding genotyping services that would prove utterly useless to the consumer. While the benefits of the health screen 23andme offer are debatable, the ancestry screen looks cool.