Epigenetic Differences in Cortical Neurons from a Pair of Monozygotic Twins Discordant for Alzheimer's Disease
Date
2009-8-12
Authors
Mastroeni, Diego
McKee, Ann
Grover, Andrew
Rogers, Joseph
Coleman, Paul D.
Version
OA Version
Citation
Mastroeni, Diego, Ann McKee, Andrew Grover, Joseph Rogers, Paul D. Coleman. "Epigenetic Differences in Cortical Neurons from a Pair of Monozygotic Twins Discordant for Alzheimer's Disease" PLoS ONE 4(8): e6617. (2009)
Abstract
DNA methylation [1], [2] is capable of modulating coordinate expression of large numbers of genes across many different pathways, and may therefore warrant investigation for their potential role between genes and disease phenotype. In a rare set of monozygotic twins discordant for Alzheimer's disease (AD), significantly reduced levels of DNA methylation were observed in temporal neocortex neuronal nuclei of the AD twin. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that epigenetic mechanisms may mediate at the molecular level the effects of life events on AD risk, and provide, for the first time, a potential explanation for AD discordance despite genetic similarities.
Description
License
Mastroeni et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.