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The power of twin designs arises from the fact that twins may be either identical (monozygotic (MZ), i.e. developing from a single fertilized egg and therefore sharing all of their polymorphic alleles) or fraternal (dizygotic (DZ), i.e. developing from two fertilized eggs and therefore sharing on average 50% of their alleles, the same level of genetic similarity found in non-twin siblings).
Monozygotic twins are genetically nearly identical and they are the same chromosomal sex unless there has been a mutation during development. The children of monozygotic twins test genetically as half-siblings (or full siblings, if a pair of monozygotic twins reproduces with another pair or with the same person), rather than first cousins.
The word zygosity may also be used to describe the genetic similarity or dissimilarity of twins. [6] Identical twins are monozygotic, meaning that they develop from one zygote that splits and forms two embryos. Fraternal twins are dizygotic because they develop from two separate oocytes (egg cells) that are fertilized by two separate sperm.
A term most applicable to vertebrate species, multiple births occur in most kinds of mammals, with varying frequencies. Such births are often named according to the number of offspring, as in twins and triplets. In non-humans, the whole group may also be referred to as a litter, and multiple births may be more common than single births ...
Take a look at how genetically similar we are to everything around us: For humans, we're 99.9 percent similar to the person sitting next to us. The rest of those genes tell us everything from our ...
A pair of identical twins who grew up in separate countries have somehow developed similar personality traits but significantly different IQ levels, a recent study has found. In the study ...
Monozygotic twins result from the fertilization of one egg and the division of that single embryo forming two embryos. [4] However, just because a set of twins share the same genetic information, it does not mean they will exhibit the same traits and behaviors. There are different versions of a gene, which are called alleles. How a gene is ...
Twins—and the media—annually descend on Twinsburg, Ohio, for the Twins Days Festival; quintuplets get a shout-out in their local paper when they graduate from the same college; and who could ...