I need your help!
Yes you! Urgently please.
You are a medical student, aren’t you?
There is a problem in my family and you might be able to proffer a solution.
Something happened three weeks ago. Uncle mike, a distant cousin, stormed into our family house with darting eyes burning in fury. He brushed past me without giving answer to my persistent greetings.
Uncle Mike is a jovial one, so seeing him that way was puzzling and that piqued my curiosity. He moved around with so much frenzy, darting his eyes every-which-way, as though he was looking for a gold mine.
“Who the FUCK owns Jamal?” His voice thundered from the room he shared with his wife. I quietly tiptoed and peered through the door’s keyhole to know what was actually going on.
“Mike, please calm down, don’t use such vulgar words, kids live here too” Aunty Morris, His wife’s soft voice rang
“I’m going to ask for the last time, WHO OWNS THIS CHILD?!” He raved, pointing to the child that lay on Aunty Morris’s lap
“Babe, Jamal is our child! We brought him to his world together”
“Enough! I am tired of this your constant deceit. I need the truth now!” He was roaring and then his voice began to break, before he burst into tears.
I had never seen Uncle Mike so shaken up until that day. I backed up from the door to retreat just when I heard his: “It’s okay Morris, just pack your things and leave before dusk today. I don’t know what to do with Jamal. When you are ready to talk, we’ll decide then”
He stepped out of his room looking dejected
‘What could have gone wrong?’
The next day, I heard the full gist from my elder brother. Apparently, Uncle Mike discovered that Aunty Morris has been cheating on him with his Estranged Identical Twin Brother, Uncle Max. The affair had been going on even before Aunty Morris and Uncle Mike had their first child, JAMAL. Uncle Max revealed the secret because Aunty Morris have been constantly denied him access to JAMAL.
The issue now is that, there is a possibility that either Uncle Mike or Max is Jamal’s real father.
However, I learnt that identical twins share 100% of each other’s DNA, and, Uncle Max and Mike are legit identical twins. So much that it’s pretty hard differentiating them.
Since they share virtually the same DNA genetic materials, how can a DNA test help reveal Jamal’s father? Wouldn’t it show the same paternity-child compatibility results for both men?
Uncle Mike is really shaken up right now but bent on figuring this out. He loves Jamal but does not want to take care of someone else’s child.
I don’t want to break the possible bad news of a DNA test not being the solution, to Uncle Mike. At least not until I’m certain about other options.
Can you help me out here? How can we help Uncle Mike figure out this paternity puzzle? What other solutions can work out?
Let us help Uncle mike answer his ultimate question “Who owns this child?”
Written by Favour Ikharo, Bayero University Kano, Kano State, NIGERIA.
Well this is thrilling to figure out.
Like a Sherlock Holmes in medicine should solve the case
I know right?
I’ve surfed the net to think of possible solutions
Hopefully I’ll come up with one soon
Thanks for reading through 😀
I think a ChIP-seq test for their epigenome can differentiate between them. That could help identify the father of the Kid between the twins
Can you please give a summary of what the *CHIP seq test* is about
Never heard of it
Paternity DNA test can still solve the problem. Though identical twins came from the same egg with divided into two. Both of.the eggs grow by multiple division to achieve multicellular organism. During the process the machinery copies genes of each cell during replication. But during that process, errors occurs due to mutation which can leads to small differences in the DNA of the identical twins. This minor differences can be detected when some same regions of the DNA of Uncle Mike and Uncle Max are compared with that of Jamal
Jibril, Bayero University Kano, Nigeria
More work for the Lab scientists involved
And definitely worth the shot
Thanks a bunch
Introduction
Partanity test which is based on finding the similarities between the sequence of a child and a man who claims to be the father.. Human has about 3.2 billion nucleotides That makes up the DNA but in partanity dispute, you only sequence few (maybe 20) and then correlate the results..
Understanding DNA Variation I
human use about 5-10% of the DNA for protein synthesis which means a whole 90% are not in use and every individual varies on biochemically in term of the protein they produce as a result of variation in this 5-10%. This Is known as single neucliotide polymophysm, that is the difference between the colour of my hair and yours maybe as a result of variation in just one neucliotide. Another typical example is the variation that occurs in haemoglobin S where glutamic acid is substituted for valine as a result in a neucliotides that codes for it
Understanding DNA variation II
Between each DNA sequence that codes for protein are numerous repeated Sequence Known as short tandem repeat (STR). The STR are so numerous that except you are an offspring of an individual, it is not possible to have the same sequence..
The DNA testing takes this advantage to group based on similarities the probability of a father of a child..
Identical twins and variation in STR
Yes, identical twins have identical DNA and look very much alike because they don’t or have little variation in theit single neucliotide polymophysm. However, After division, each individual commence cell duplication which will result in variation in the STR. The the identical twice will look very alike but when you sequence about 3million (instead of the 20 in normal), the variation will come up..
The difference And similarities in the variation Can be matched with the child to know the true father (despite being identical)
With the Complexity of this test, I don’t need to tell you how expensive it will be..
Thank you
It is most commonly believed that identical twins share identical DNA, however, with new advanced technology and developing methods this belief can be proved not necessarily true. A standard paternity test relies on the differences between the DNA of two potential dads. And identical twins have so few that these tests miss them.
This is why you need a more comprehensive test. Instead of the usual 15 or so markers that a standard test looks at, you need a test that looks at six billion or so markers. Only then do you have any chance of telling which identical twin is the real dad.
You can only get this much information from sequencing the entire set of DNA (or the genome) of each twin, the mother, and the child. The standard DNA testing protocols only look at a small portion of an individual’s DNA. With new advanced technology such as next generation sequencing, we have the potential to analyze the entire human genome, which can help differentiate between identical twins. This differentiation is done by identifying at least a single mutation where the DNA of one identical twin differs from the other.
Mutations are basically “errors” or “typos” in the human DNA which occur during development. These mutations are completely random, which makes it very unlikely that both twins would have the same mutations. Hence, looking at even a single mutation can help conclude a paternity or forensic case. Currently, the process of analyzing the entire genome is very expensive and time consuming, therefore, it is not commonly offered by DNA.