Differences between germline genomes of monozygotic twins | Twin gene

Despite the important role that monozygotic twins have played in genetics research, little is known about their genomic differences.SkiptomaincontentThankyouforvisitingnature.com.YouareusingabrowserversionwithlimitedsupportforCSS.Toobtainthebestexperience,werecommendyouuseamoreuptodatebrowser(orturnoffcompatibilitymodeinInternetExplorer).Inthemeantime,toensurecontinuedsupport,wearedisplayingthesitewithoutstylesandJavaScript.AdvertisementnaturenaturegeneticsarticlesarticleDifferencesbetweengermlinegenomesofmonozygotictwinsDownloadPDFSubjectsCelllineageGenomicsGermlinedevelopmentPopulationgeneticsAbstractDespitetheimportantrolethatmonozygotictwinshaveplayedingeneticsresearch,littleisknownabouttheirgenomicdifferences.Hereweshowthatmonozygotictwinsdifferonaverageby5.2earlydevelopmentalmutationsandthatapproximately15%ofmonozygotictwinshaveasubstantialnumberoftheseearlydevelopmentalmutationsspecifictooneofthem.Usingtheparentsandoffspringoftwins,weidentifiedpre-twinningmutations.Weobservedinstanceswhereatwinwasformedfromasinglecelllineageinthepre-twinningcellmassandinstanceswhereatwinwasformedfromseveralcelllineages.CpG>TpGmutationsincreasedinfrequencywithembryonicdevelopment,coincidingwithanincreaseinDNAmethylation.Ourresultsindicatethatallocationsofcellsduringdevelopmentshapesgenomicdifferencesbetweenmonozygotictwins.DownloadPDFMainAcommonassumptionisthatthesequencesofthegenomesofmonozygotictwinsarealmostidentical1.However,thereisapaucityofstudiescharacterizinggenomicdifferencesbetweenthesetwins1,2,3,4,5.Theaveragenumberofdifferencesbetweenthegenomesofmonozygotictwinsisnotknown.Furthermore,thetypesofmutationsleadingtothesedifferencesandtheirtimingareunknown.WhenDNAisolatedfromthebloodofmonozygotictwinsissequencedandcompared,someofthedifferencesseenmaybeduetosomaticmutationsinbloodcellsortheirprecursors.Suchmutationsaremorelikelytobeinadetectablequantitywiththeincreasingageofthetwinsduetoclonalhematopoiesis6(Fig.1).Fig.1:Thetimingofpostzygoticmutations.Postzygoticmutation

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Despite the important role that monozygotic twins have played in genetics research, little is known about their genomic differences.
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