New evidence for monozygotic twins in the mouse: Twinning initiated in the late blastocyst can account for mirror image asymmetries
✍ Scribed by Runner, Meredith N.
- Book ID
- 102744062
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1984
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 682 KB
- Volume
- 209
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0003-276X
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The 11.5-day twin mice reported here support one of the classically described mechanisms for mammalian monozygotic twinning: subdivision of the blastocyst inner cell mass at the stage of proamnion cavitation.
This particular method for monozygotic twinning has the attraction of providing a hypothesis for mirror image translocation of asymmetric traits. Monozygotic twins in laboratory rodents at or near parturition have not been identified and only two prior descriptions, for 7.5-and 9.5-day mouse embryos, have been found in the literature. Experimentally induced twins having identical heredity, i.e., clones, would enable study of heritable and environmental regulation of the components of discordance. A set of twin mouse embryos a t 11.5 days of gestation within a common yolk sac, and with shared vitelline and allantoic circulations, provides direct evidence that monozygotic twin mice can survive rotation within the common yolk sac and suggests a reasonable probability that they can survive to term.