Identical twins carry a persistent epigenetic signature of early genome programming

DOI PDF Web Site 2 Citations

Description

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>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.</jats:p>

Journal

  • Nature Communications

    Nature Communications 12 (1), 5618-, 2021-09-28

    Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Citations (2)*help

See more

Report a problem

Back to top