Dept. of Huh?

Via Tyler Cowen, a very surprising research finding.

Contrary to our previous beliefs, identical twins are not genetically identical. This surprising finding is presented by American, Swedish, and Dutch scientists in a study being published today in the prestigious journal American Journal of Human Genetics. The finding may be of great significance for research on hereditary diseases and for the development of new diagnostic methods.

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. (...)

These researchers studied 19 pairs of identical twins and found that they indeed had the same DNA but nevertheless evinced differences in the number of copies of individual DNA segments. A segment might be missing, or more copies might exist in one twin.

This means that twin studies which have uncovered genetic influences on personality and behaviour might have underestimated these influences because they operate on the assumption that monozygoic twins are in fact genetically identical.