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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.
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).
The human twin birth rate in the United States rose 76% from 1980 through 2009, from 9.4 to 16.7 twin sets (18.8 to 33.3 twins) per 1,000 births. [5] The Yoruba people have the highest rate of twinning in the world, at 45–50 twin sets (90–100 twins) per 1,000 live births, [6] [7] [8] possibly because of high consumption of a specific type of yam containing a natural phytoestrogen which may ...
It is widely used in genetic epidemiology and behavioural genetics. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] The basic ACE model relies on several assumptions, including the absence of assortative mating , [ 4 ] that there is no genetic dominance or epistasis , [ 5 ] that all genetic effects are additive, and the absence of gene-environment interactions . [ 3 ]
Twin studies are one method of testing genetic and environmental influences, although they cannot reveal what kind of environmental influence this may include (social or non-social). [29] Identical or monozygotic twins share their genes, while fraternal or dizygotic twins are only as genetically similar as any other sibling pair.
In genetics, concordance is the probability that a pair of individuals will both have a certain characteristic (phenotypic trait) given that one of the pair has the characteristic. Concordance can be measured with concordance rates , reflecting the odds of one person having the trait if the other does.
The zygote's genome is a combination of the DNA in each gamete, and contains all of the genetic information of a new individual organism. The sexual fusion of haploid cells is called karyogamy , the result of which is the formation of a diploid cell called the zygote or zygospore.
A 1994 article in Behavior Genetics based on a study of Swedish monozygotic and dizygotic twins found the heritability of the sample to be as high as 0.80 in general cognitive ability; however, it also varies by trait, with 0.60 for verbal tests, 0.50 for spatial and speed-of-processing tests, and 0.40 for memory tests. In contrast, studies of ...