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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Jan 1.
Published in final edited form as: Ageing Res Rev. 2012 Jun 29;12(1):182–187. doi: 10.1016/j.arr.2012.06.004

Figure 1.

Figure 1

The uses of twins in epigenetic studies. To the left, MZ twin pairs discordant for one trait or phenotype can be sampled and analyzed for identifying loci under differential epigenetic modification. To the right, non-parametric quantitative trait loci linkage mapping can be applied to molecular epigenetic phenotypes in DZ twins to map genes showing trans- or cis- regulatory mechanisms. In the middle, with both MZ and DZ twins, the classical twin model can be extended to molecular epigenetic phenotypes for assessing the genetic and environmental contributions in epigenetic control over gene activities.