No. 4/December 1, 2000
Embargoed until: December 1, 2000
Hot on the trail of the ”twin gene”
Close cooperation between Berlin researchers and Polish and Finnish scientists
Multiple conceptions in humans is more common than the number
of non-identical twins ultimately born. A possible reason for this has been
identified by scientists from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine
(MDC) Berlin-Buch and the Franz Volhard Cardiovascular Clinic (University
Charité Clinic, Berlin-Buch Campus) in collaboration with Polish and Finnish
colleagues. The research carried out by Dr. Andreas Busjahn* and colleagues in
Germany and abroad has just appeared in British journal Nature Genetics (Vol.
26, No. 4, pp 398 et seq.).
About 40 per cent of women who are expecting non-identical twins lose one during the course of their pregnancy. These are referred to as ”vanishing twins”. A relatively similar rate (30 per cent) is found in women undergoing medical treatment for infertility. It seems likely that a gene is responsible and it has been tracked down to a site on chromosome 3.
The cardiovascular researchers were looking at fat metabolism in twins when they got on the track of a possible relationship between this gene, known as PPARgamma**, and twin births. Their research involved 122 identical and 181 non-identical sets of twins from Germany, Finland and Poland.
According to Dr. Busjahn, the gene does not only play a role in fat metabolism, it is also involved in insulin homeostasis and the increase in weight that occurs during development. All three factors are involved in making sure that the fetus thrives in the womb. The researchers believe that this gene plays an important role in the normal course of a pregnancy.
Non-identical twins, both of which carry the same variant of the PPARgamma gene, must also develop in a similar fashion, according to the researchers. Explaining the hypothesis of the researchers, Prof. Friedrich Luft, a hypertension expert and renal specialist at the Volhard Clinic commented: ”In other words, neither twin can develop in its mother’s womb at the expense of the other.”
*Andreas Busjahn1,2, Hans
Knoblauch1,2, Hans-Dieter Faulhaber1, Atakan Aydin1, Regina Uhlmann1, Jaakko
Tuomilehto3, Jaakko Kaprio4, Piotr Jedrusik5,
Andrzej Januszewicz6, Jan Strelau7, Herbert Schuster1,2,
Friedrich C. Luft1, and Bertram Müller-Myhsok8 1Franz Volhard Clinic, Medical
Faculty of the Charité, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany and Max Delbrück
Center, 2Infogen, a subsidiary of ValiGen N.V., 3National
Public Health Institute, Helsinki, Finland, 4The Finnish Twin Cohort
Study, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, 5Warsaw Medical
University, Warsaw, Poland, 6National Institute of Cardiology,
Warsaw, Poland, 7University of Warsaw, Poland, and 8Bernhard
Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Germany. **The abbreviation PPAR gamma stands for Peroxysome Proliferator
Activated Receptor.
Barbara Bachtler
Press and Public Affairs
Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch
Robert-Rössle-Straße 10; 13125 Berlin; Germany
Phone: +49 (0) 30 94 06 - 38 96
Fax: +49 (0) 30 94 06 - 38 33
e-mail: presse@mdc-berlin.de
http://www.mdc-berlin.de/englisch/about_the_mdc/public_relations/e_index.htm