title: Different rates of telomere attrition in peripheral lymphocytes in a pair of dizygotic twins with hematopoietic chimerism.
abstract: Hematopoietic chimerism in dizygotic twins is due to placental vascular anastomoses and arises when hematopoietic stem cells from one twin home to the bone marrow of the other. We report a case of hematopoietic chimerism in a pair of 27-year-old dizygotic twins who each had a mixture of 46,XX and 46,XY blood lymphocytes, both with 98% male (XY) lymphocytes and 2% female (XX) lymphocytes. Analysis of telomere length by T/C FISH revealed that the female twin generally had longer telomeres than the male twin. Moreover, in the male sibling, the telomeres within the female lymphocytes were shortened to 87% of their original length, while the telomeres within the male lymphocytes were 33% longer in the female sibling. Thus, telomere length attrition in peripheral lymphocytes is determined mainly by the environment of the cell and less by intracellular factors.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Pathology, Ulm University, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Silke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Brüderlein
authors.forename: Kathrin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Melzner
authors.forename: Josef
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Högel
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wiegand
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Möller
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002678:Chimera / Q000097:blood* / Q000235:genetics*; D046528:Chimerism; D041321:Chromosomes, Human, X / Q000235:genetics; D041322:Chromosomes, Human, Y / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D006410:Hematopoiesis / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D016131:Lymphocyte Subsets / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D016615:Telomere / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D014429:Twins, Dizygotic / Q000097:blood* / Q000235:genetics*