Just How Similar ARE Newborn Identical Twins, Epigenetically Speaking?

It depends on which tissues you’re talking about. And epigenetic modification — or at least methylation — in newborns is dictated by genetic, environmental, and tissue-specific factors, according to research published this month by Lavinia Gordon and colleagues at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and six other universities, research centers, and hospitals. First the tissue-based factor. Using statistical clustering, the mostly Australian multi-institutional group found that the methylation profiles of identical twins segregated into the same categories — the same general patterns of DNA modification — more often or less often, depending on the DNA’s tissue of origin. in  placental tissue, 71 percent of twin pairs’ methylation patterns “clustered” together statistically. In cord blood mononuclear cells (CBMC), identical twins shared … Continue reading →