Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Identical twins not as identical as believed

A new snag in twin studies:
Contrary to our previous beliefs, identical twins are not genetically identical....

How can it be that one identical twin might develop Parkinson’s disease, for instance, but not the other? Until now, the reasons have been sought in environmental factors. The current study complicates the picture.

“Even though the genome is virtually identical in identical twins, our results show that there in fact are tiny differences and that they are relatively common. This could have a major impact on our understanding of genetically determined disorders,”

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