Identical twins carry a persistent epigenetic signature of early genome programming.
Monozygotic (MZ) twins and higher-order multiples arise when a zygote splits during pre-implantation stages of development. The mechanisms underpinning this event have remained a mystery. Because MZ twinning rarely runs in families, the leading hypothesis is that it occurs at random. Here, we show that MZ twinning is strongly associated with a stable DNA methylation signature in adult somatic tissues. This signature spans regions near telomeres and centromeres, Polycomb-repressed regions and heterochromatin, genes involved in cell-adhesion, WNT signaling, cell fate, and putative human metastable epialleles. Our study also demonstrates a never-anticipated corollary: because identical twins keep a lifelong molecular signature, we can retrospectively diagnose if a person was conceived as monozygotic twin.
Duke Scholars
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- Young Adult
- United Kingdom
- Twins, Monozygotic
- Twinning, Monozygotic
- Retrospective Studies
- Registries
- Quantitative Trait Loci
- Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
- Netherlands
- Middle Aged
Citation
Published In
DOI
EISSN
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- Young Adult
- United Kingdom
- Twins, Monozygotic
- Twinning, Monozygotic
- Retrospective Studies
- Registries
- Quantitative Trait Loci
- Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
- Netherlands
- Middle Aged