Carotid atherosclerosis (CAS) is associated with increased cardiovascular risk, and therefore, assessing the genetic versus environmental background of CAS traits is of key importance. Carotid intima-media-thickness and plaque characteristics seem to be moderately heritable, with remarkable differences in both heritability and presence or severity of these traits among ethnicities. Although the considerable role of additive genetic effects is obvious, based on the results so far, there is an important emphasis on non-shared environmental factors as well. We aimed to collect and summarize the papers that investigate twin and family studies assessing the phenotypic variance attributable to genetic associations with CAS. Genes in relation to CAS markers were overviewed with a focus on genetic association studies and genome-wide association studies. Although the role of certain genes is confirmed by studies conducted on large populations and meta-analyses, many of them show conflicting results. A great focus should be on future studies elucidating the exact pathomechanism of these genes in CAS in order to imply them as novel therapeutic targets.

Hundreds of penetrant risk loci have been identified across different neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), and these often involve rare (<1% frequency) copy number variations (CNVs), which can involve one or more genes. Monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs are long thought to share 100% of their genomic information. However, genetic differences in the form of postzygotic somatic variants have been reported recently both in typically developing (TD) and in clinically discordant MZ pairs. We sought to investigate the contribution of rare CNVs in 100 twin pairs enriched for NDD phenotypes with a particular focus on postzygotic CNVs in MZ pairs discordant for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using the Illumina Infinium PsychArray. In our sample, no postzygotic de novo CNVs were found in 55 MZ twin pairs, including the 13 pairs discordant for ASD. We did detect a higher rate of CNVs overlapping genes involved in disorders of the nervous system, such as a rare deletion affecting HNRNPU, in MZ pairs discordant and concordant for ASD in comparison with TD pairs (p = .02). Our results are in concordance with earlier findings that postzygotic de novo CNV events are typically rare in genomic DNA derived from saliva or blood, and suggests that the discordance of NDDs in our sample of twins is not explained by discordant CNVs. Still, studies investigating postzygotic variation in MZ discordant twins using DNA from different tissues and single cells and higher resolution genomics are needed in the future.

Drinking alcohol is a normal behavior in many societies, and prior studies have demonstrated it has both genetic and environmental sources of variation. Using two very large samples of twins and their first-degree relatives (Australia ≈ 20,000 individuals from 8,019 families; Virginia ≈ 23,000 from 6,042 families), we examine whether there are differences: (1) in the genetic and environmental factors that influence four interrelated drinking behaviors (quantity, frequency, age of initiation, and number of drinks in the last week), (2) between the twin-only design and the extended twin design, and (3) the Australian and Virginia samples. We find that while drinking behaviors are interrelated, there are substantial differences in the genetic and environmental architectures across phenotypes. Specifically, drinking quantity, frequency, and number of drinks in the past week have large broad genetic variance components, and smaller but significant environmental variance components, while age of onset is driven exclusively by environmental factors. Further, the twin-only design and the extended twin design come to similar conclusions regarding broad-sense heritability and environmental transmission, but the extended twin models provide a more nuanced perspective. Finally, we find a high level of similarity between the Australian and Virginian samples, especially for the genetic factors. The observed differences, when present, tend to be at the environmental level. Implications for the extended twin model and future directions are discussed.

The June 2016 death of our esteemed colleague, Dr Irving I. Gottesman, was felt as an extreme loss at so many levels by colleagues, students, friends, and family across the globe. Irv's stellar contributions to the field of twin research will continue to be remembered and cited for many years to come. In commemoration of his life and work, I organized a symposium at the 16th meeting of the International Society for Twin Studies, held in Madrid, Spain, November 16–18, 2017. The panelists included mostly former students, as well as colleagues, who presented their scientific research and personal remarks reflecting Irv's profound influence in shaping their lives and careers. A chronology of Irv's academic positions and honors is included in the introduction to this special issue of Twin Research and Human Genetics, followed by brief sketches of the panel participants; their scholarly papers and personal reflections follow.

The Barker hypothesis states that low birth weight (BW) is associated with higher risk of adult onset diseases, including mental disorders like schizophrenia, major depressive disorder (MDD), and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The main criticism of this hypothesis is that evidence for it comes from observational studies. Specifically, observational evidence does not suffice for inferring causality, because the associations might reflect the effects of confounders. Mendelian randomization (MR) — a novel method that tests causality on the basis of genetic data — creates the unprecedented opportunity to probe the causality in the association between BW and mental disorders in observation studies. We used MR and summary statistics from recent large genome-wide association studies to test whether the association between BW and MDD, schizophrenia and ADHD is causal. We employed the inverse variance weighted (IVW) method in conjunction with several other approaches that are robust to possible assumption violations. MR-Egger was used to rule out horizontal pleiotropy. IVW showed that the association between BW and MDD, schizophrenia and ADHD is not causal (all p > .05). The results of all the other MR methods were similar and highly consistent. MR-Egger provided no evidence for pleiotropic effects biasing the estimates of the effects of BW on MDD (intercept = -0.004, SE = 0.005, p = .372), schizophrenia (intercept = 0.003, SE = 0.01, p = .769), or ADHD (intercept = 0.009, SE = 0.01, p = .357). Based on the current evidence, we refute the Barker hypothesis concerning the fetal origins of adult mental disorders. The discrepancy between our results and the results from observational studies may be explained by the effects of confounders in the observational studies, or by the existence of a small causal effect not detected in our study due to weak instruments. Our power analyses suggested that the upper bound for a potential causal effect of BW on mental disorders would likely not exceed an odds ratio of 1.2.

Research on environmental and genetic pathways to complex traits such as educational attainment (EA) is confounded by uncertainty over whether correlations reflect effects of transmitted parental genes, causal family environments, or some, possibly interactive, mixture of both. Thus, an aggregate of thousands of alleles associated with EA (a polygenic risk score; PRS) may tap parental behaviors and home environments promoting EA in the offspring. New methods for unpicking and determining these causal pathways are required. Here, we utilize the fact that parents pass, at random, 50% of their genome to a given offspring to create independent scores for the transmitted alleles (conventional EA PRS) and a parental score based on alleles not transmitted to the offspring (EA VP_PRS). The formal effect of non-transmitted alleles on offspring attainment was tested in 2,333 genotyped twins for whom high-quality measures of EA, assessed at age 17 years, were available, and whose parents were also genotyped. Four key findings were observed. First, the EA PRS and EA VP_PRS were empirically independent, validating the virtual-parent design. Second, in this family-based design, children's own EA PRS significantly predicted their EA (β = 0.15), ruling out stratification confounds as a cause of the association of attainment with the EA PRS. Third, parental EA PRS predicted the SES environment parents provided to offspring (β = 0.20), and parental SES and offspring EA were significantly associated (β = 0.33). This would suggest that the EA PRS is at least as strongly linked to social competence as it is to EA, leading to higher attained SES in parents and, therefore, a higher experienced SES for children. In a full structural equation model taking account of family genetic relatedness across multiple siblings the non-transmitted allele effects were estimated at similar values; but, in this more complex model, confidence intervals included zero. A test using the forthcoming EA3 PRS may clarify this outcome. The virtual-parent method may be applied to clarify causality in other phenotypes where observational evidence suggests parenting may moderate expression of other outcomes, for instance in psychiatry.

Background: Considerable evidence from twin and adoption studies indicates that genetic and shared environmental factors play a role in the initiation of smoking behavior. Although twin and adoption designs are powerful to detect genetic and environmental influences, they do not provide information on the processes of assortative mating and parent–offspring transmission and their contribution to the variability explained by genetic and/or environmental factors. Methods: We examined the role of genetic and environmental factors in individual differences for smoking initiation (SI) using an extended kinship design. This design allows the simultaneous testing of additive and non-additive genetic, shared and individual-specific environmental factors, as well as sex differences in the expression of genes and environment in the presence of assortative mating and combined genetic and cultural transmission, while also estimating the regression of the prevalence of SI on age. A dichotomous lifetime ‘ever’ smoking measure was obtained from twins and relatives in the ‘Virginia 30,000’ sample and the ‘Australian 25,000’. Results: Results demonstrate that both genetic and environmental factors play a significant role in the liability to SI. Major influences on individual differences appeared to be additive genetic and unique environmental effects, with smaller contributions from assortative mating, shared sibling environment, twin environment, cultural transmission, and resulting genotype-environment covariance. Age regression of the prevalence of SI was significant. The finding of negative cultural transmission without dominance led us to investigate more closely two possible mechanisms for the lower parent–offspring correlations compared to the sibling and DZ twin correlations in subsets of the data: (1) age × gene interaction, and (2) social homogamy. Neither of the mechanism provided a significantly better explanation of the data. Conclusions: This study showed significant heritability, partly due to assortment, and significant effects of primarily non-parental shared environment on liability to SI.

Intelligence and educational attainment are strongly genetically correlated. This relationship can be exploited by Multi-Trait Analysis of GWAS (MTAG) to add power to Genome-wide Association Studies (GWAS) of intelligence. MTAG allows the user to meta-analyze GWASs of different phenotypes, based on their genetic correlations, to identify association's specific to the trait of choice. An MTAG analysis using GWAS data sets on intelligence and education was conducted by Lam et al. (2017). Lam et al. (2017) reported 70 loci that they described as ‘trait specific’ to intelligence. This article examines whether the analysis conducted by Lam et al. (2017) has resulted in genetic information about a phenotype that is more similar to education than intelligence.

The genetic and environmental contributions of negative valence systems (NVS) to internalizing pathways study (also referred to as the Adolescent and Young Adult Twin Study) was designed to examine varying constructs of the NVS as they relate to the development of internalizing disorders from a genetically informed perspective. The goal of this study was to evaluate genetic and environmental contributions to potential psychiatric endophenotypes that contribute to internalizing psychopathology by studying adolescent and young adult twins longitudinally over a 2-year period. This report details the sample characteristics, study design, and methodology of this study. The first wave of data collection (i.e., time 1) is complete; the 2-year follow-up (i.e., time 2) is currently underway. A total of 430 twin pairs (N = 860 individual twins; 166 monozygotic pairs; 57.2% female) and 422 parents or legal guardians participated at time 1. Twin participants completed self-report surveys and participated in experimental paradigms to assess processes within the NVS. Additionally, parents completed surveys to report on themselves and their twin children. Findings from this study will help clarify the genetic and environmental influences of the NVS and their association with internalizing risk. The goal of this line of research is to develop methods for early internalizing disorder risk detection.

Psychological distress (PSYCH), somatic distress (SOMA), affective disorders (AD), and substance use (SU) frequently co-occur. The genetic relationship between PSYCH and SOMA, however, remains understudied. We examined the genetic and environmental influences on these two disorders and their comorbid AD and SU using structural equation modeling. Self-reported PSYCH and SOMA were measured in 1,548 twins using the two subscales of a 12-item questionnaire, the Somatic and Psychological Health Report. Its reliability and psychometric properties were examined. Six ADs, involvement of licit and illicit substance, and two SU disorders were obtained from 1,663–2,132 twins using the World Mental Health Composite International Diagnostic Interview and/or from an online adaption of the same. SU phenotypes (heritability: 49–79%) were found to be more heritable than the affective disorder phenotypes (heritability: 32–42%), SOMA (heritability: 25%), and PSYCH (heritability: 23%). We fit separate non-parametric item response theory models for PSYCH, SOMA, AD, and SU. The IRT scores were used as the refined phenotypes for fitting multivariate genetic models. The best-fitting model showed the similar amount of genetic overlap between PSYCH–AD (genetic correlation rG = 0.49) and SOMA–AD (rG =0.53), as well as between PSYCH–SU (rG = 0.23) and SOMA–SU (rG = 0.25). Unique environmental factors explained 53% to 76% of the variance in each of these four phenotypes, whereas additive genetic factors explained 17% to 46% of the variance. The covariance between the four phenotypes was largely explained by unique environmental factors. Common genetic factor had a significant influence on all the four phenotypes, but they explained a moderate portion of the covariance.

Using the continuous parameter estimation model (CPEM), a large genotyped adult sample of the population of Wisconsin, USA (the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study) is examined for evidence of the Scarr–Rowe effect, a gene × environment (G×E) interaction that reduces the heritability of IQ among those with low socioeconomic status (SES). This method allows the differential expressivity of polygenic scores predictive of both educational attainment and IQ (EA3) on the phenotype of IQ to be directly operationalized throughout the full range of these variables. Utilizing a parental SES factor-weighted composite as a measure of childhood SES, evidence for the Scarr–Rowe effect was found, that is, the genetic expressivity of EA3 on IQ increased with increasing parental SES (β = 0.08, p = 4.71×10−10, df = 6,255). The effect was found for both the male and female samples separately, β(males) = 0.08, p = 5.27×10−5, df = 3,018; β(females) = 0.08, p = 1.93×10−6, df = 3,236. The effects were furthermore robust to removing outlying values of parental SES and to log-transforming the SES variable. The results are similar to those produced using a more conventional two-way interaction model, with IQ predicting the EA3 × log of parental SES interaction after the main effects; however, CPEM allows for greater model degrees of freedom, thus is better powered to detect the effect when it is small in magnitude (CPEM β = 0.05, p = 6.69×10−5 vs. two-way interaction β = 0.02, pone-tailed = .045, in both models log parental SES is used).

Play among peers is an important developmental context for child socialization. We have earlier shown that children at genetic risk for aggression were more likely to be treated aggressively by unfamiliar peers during peer play, reflecting genotype-evoked behaviors manifested during play. In this study, 118 5-year-old twin pairs were paired randomly with an unfamiliar, same-age, same-sex child, thus controlling for parent- and child-chosen environments (passive and active rGE). Twins played separately from each other with unmatched children. Play behaviors were coded for aggressive and assertive behaviors. Children were also independently rated by parents for rule-breaking problem behaviors at age 5, and 97 children were rated again on these behaviors 2–10 years later. Analyses showed that children at genetic risk for early rule-breaking were more likely to have partners who behaved more aggressively, suggesting that this was evoked behavior during play. Some evidence of an ‘early bloomer’ phenomenon emerged via early difficult temperament and parent-rated delinquency significantly predicting later delinquency. Children's play, which is one of the most important influences on early development, requires further study from an rGE perspective.

Familial monozygotic (MZ) twinning reports are rare around the world, and we report a four-generation pedigree with seven recorded pairs of female MZ twins. Whole-genome sequencing of seven family members was performed to explore the featured genetic factors in MZ twins. For variations specific to MZ twins, five novel variants were observed in the X chromosome. These candidates were used to explain the seemingly X-linked dominant inheritance pattern, and only one variant was exonic, located at the 5′UTR region of ZCCHC12 (chrX: 117958597, G > A). Besides, consistent mitochondrial DNA composition in the maternal linage precluded roles of mitochondria for this trait. In this pedigree, autosomes also contain diverse variations specific to MZ twins. Pathway analysis revealed a significant enrichment of genes carrying novel SNVs in the epithelial adherens junction-signaling pathway (p = .011), contributed by FGFR1, TUBB6, and MYH7B. Meanwhile, TBC1D22A, TRIOBP, and TUBB6, also carrying similar SNVs, were involved in the GTPase family-mediated signal pathway. Furthermore, gene-set enrichment analysis for 533 genes covered by copy number variations specific to MZ twins illustrated that the tight junction-signaling pathway was significantly enriched (p < .001). Therefore, the novel changes in the X chromosome and the provided candidate variants across autosomes may be responsible for MZ twinning, giving clues to increase our understanding about the underlying mechanism.

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of genetic and environment influences and sex on injury involvement using two sets of Finnish twin data. The younger participants were 955 twins born between 1983 and 1987, aged 20 to 24 years. The older participants were 12,428 twins born between 1930 and 1957, aged 33 to 60 years. Within-twin correlations in monozygotic and dizygotic twins suggested that genetic effects play no role in injury involvement among young twins, but do have some effect at older ages. The results indicated that environmental factors have greater importance in injury involvement than genetic factors in the younger twin data set (FT12), whereas in a middle-aged (33–60 years) twin data set, genetic effects explained about quarter of the variance in injury involvement. Sex was a strong contributing factor, with males being generally more prone to injuries than females.

Schooling differences between identical twins are often utilized as a natural experiment to estimate returns to education. Despite longstanding doubts about the truly random nature of within-twin-pair schooling discordance, such discordance has not yet been understood comprehensively, in terms of diverse between- and within-family peer, academic, familial, social, and health exposures. Here, a predictive analysis using national U.S. midlife twin data shows that within-pair schooling differences are endogenous to a variety of childhood exposures. Using discordance propensities, returns to education under a true natural experiment are simulated. Results for midlife occupation and income reveal differences in estimated returns to education that are statistically insignificant, suggesting that twin-based estimates of causal effects are robust. Moreover, identical and fraternal twins show similar levels of discordance endogeneity and similar responses to propensity weighting, suggesting that the identical twins may not provide demonstrably better leverage in the causal identification of educational returns.

Until now, data have not been available to elucidate the genetic and environmental sources of comorbidity between all 10 DSM-IV personality disorders (PDs) and cocaine use. Our aim was to determine which PD traits are linked phenotypically and genetically to cocaine use. Cross-sectional data were obtained in a face-to-face interview between 1999 and 2004. Subjects were 1,419 twins (µage = 28.2 years, range = 19–36) from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health Twin Panel, with complete lifetime cocaine use and criteria for all 10 DSM-IV PDs. Stepwise multiple and Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) regressions were used to identify PDs related to cocaine use. Twin models were fitted to estimate genetic and environmental associations between the PD traits and cocaine use. In the multiple regression, antisocial (OR = 4.24, 95% CI [2.66, 6.86]) and borderline (OR = 2.19, 95% CI [1.35, 3.57]) PD traits were significant predictors of cocaine use. In the LASSO regression, antisocial, borderline, and histrionic were significant predictors of cocaine use. Antisocial and borderline PD traits each explained 72% and 25% of the total genetic risks in cocaine use, respectively. Genetic risks in histrionic PD were not significantly related to cocaine use. Importantly, after removing criteria referencing substance use, antisocial PD explained 65% of the total genetic variance in cocaine use, whereas borderline explained only 4%. Among PD traits, antisocial is the strongest correlate of cocaine use, for which the association is driven largely by common genetic risks.

Irving Gottesman is known primarily for his work in psychopathology, but he also had a long-standing interest in understanding psychological development generally (typical and atypical). Through his mentorship, he also influenced work in gender development. Characteristics related to sex and gender are ideally suited to study the interplay of genes and environment across development. We discuss how gender development is influenced by gonadal hormones present during early life, but not in a simple way. We describe some of the challenges and opportunities to extend our understanding of the complexity of gender development. Throughout, we consider the kinds of questions Gottesman would likely have asked and emphasize his influence on our work.

Blood eosinophil count is associated with a variety of common complex outcomes in epidemiological observation. The aim of this study was to explore the causal association between determined blood eosinophil count and 20 common complex outcomes (10 metabolic, 6 cardiac, and 4 pulmonary). Through Mendelian randomization, we investigated genetic evidence for the genetically determined eosinophil in association with each outcomes using individual-level LifeLines cohort data (n = 13,301), where a weighted eosinophil genetic risk score comprising five eosinophil associated variants was created. We further examined the associations of the genetically determined eosinophil with those outcomes using summary statistics obtained from genome-wide association study consortia (6 consortia and 14 outcomes). Blood eosinophil count, by a 1-SD genetically increased, was not statistically associated with common complex outcomes in the LifeLines. Using the summary statistics, we showed that a higher genetically determined eosinophil count had a significant association with lower odds of obesity (odds ratio (OR) 0.81, 95% confidence interval (CI) [0.74, 0.89]) but not with the other traits and diseases. To conclude, an elevated eosinophil count is unlikely to be causally associated to higher risk of metabolic, cardiac, and pulmonary outcomes. Further studies with a stronger genetic risk score for eosinophil count may support these results.

Major depression is a complex disorder with no single, direct causal mechanism. Morbidity has been linked to genetic processes, developmental history, and unique environmental exposures. Epigenetic mechanisms, especially DNA methylation, are also likely important factors in the pathogenesis of major depressive disorder (MDD). A community-based twin sample has many advantages for epigenetic studies, given the shared genetic and developmental histories of same-sex twin pairs. This article describes the rationale and study design for the Mood and Methylation Study in which 133 twin pairs (101 monozygotic and 32 dizygotic), both discordant and concordant for lifetime history of MDD, were evaluated on a large number of variables related to MDD. The twins also provided blood samples for an epigenome-wide association study of differentially methylated regions (DMR) relevant to MDD. Although MDD is typically considered a disorder of the central nervous system, it is unfeasible to obtain a large sample of brain tissues. However, epigenetic variation is not limited to the affected tissue but can also be detected in peripheral blood leukocytes. Thus, this study focused on monocytes for the major analyses. Additional plans for the study include gene expression analysis from the same set of twins using RNA-seq and validation of significant DMRs in postmortem brain tissues from a separate sample. Moreover, sufficient samples have been collected to perform future ‘multi-omic’ analyses, including metabolome, microbiome, and transcriptome. Our long-term goal is to understand how epigenomic and other ‘omic’ factors can be manipulated for diagnostic, preventive, and therapeutic purposes for MDD and its related conditions.

Objective: The human gut microbiota has been demonstrated to be associated with a number of host phenotypes, including obesity and a number of obesity-associated phenotypes. This study is aimed at further understanding and describing the relationship between the gut microbiota and obesity-associated measurements obtained from human participants. Subjects/Methods: Here, we utilize genetically informative study designs, including a four-corners design (extremes of genetic risk for BMI and of observed BMI; N = 50) and the BMI monozygotic (MZ) discordant twin pair design (N = 30), in order to help delineate the role of host genetics and the gut microbiota in the development of obesity. Results: Our results highlight a negative association between BMI and alpha diversity of the gut microbiota. The low genetic risk/high BMI group of individuals had a lower gut microbiota alpha diversity when compared to the other three groups. Although the difference in alpha diversity between the lean and heavy groups of the BMI-discordant MZ twin design did not achieve significance, this difference was observed to be in the expected direction, with the heavier participants having a lower average alpha diversity. We have also identified nine OTUs observed to be associated with either a leaner or heavier phenotype, with enrichment for OTUs classified to the Ruminococcaceae and Oxalobacteraceae taxonomic families. Conclusion: Our study presents evidence of a relationship between BMI and alpha diversity of the gut microbiota. In addition to these findings, a number of OTUs were found to be significantly associated with host BMI. These findings may highlight separate subtypes of obesity, one driven by genetic factors, the other more heavily influenced by environmental factors.