Everyone has a weakness in the world (with similar DNA). Social fair inspires science: “We are so many that the system repeats itself”

everybody has Double With the same DNA somewhere. This is the result of scientific research inspired by an idea, no matter how simplistic Francois Brunel And in particular, from his likeness gallery. The Canadian artist discovered that he has a weakness in the British actor Rowan Atkinson This is how I give birthI’m not the same!“, a photography project for which they were immortalized Hundreds of pairs of doubles, people who were strikingly similar, but not related and who often did not have the same ancestry. The show was so successful that it caught my eye Scientists who study genetic relationships and above all d. Manil Esteler From the Josep Carreras Institute for Leukemia Research in Barcelona.

Esteller asked:How can this similarity be explained?For a study published in the journal cell reportsHis team was selected from the Carreras Institute 32 pairs of doubles are among those depicted by BrunelThey took DNA samples and subjected them to lifestyle questionnaires. To determine the degree of similarity, the researchers then used face recognition software. The result is impressive because the overall scores for 16 of the 32 pairs are comparable to those of pairs of identical twins.

From this, the researchers compared the DNA of 16 pairs of similar isotopes to see if there was one similarity Similar to faces. Esteller found that the 16 pairs had significantly more genes in common than the 16 pairs that the program found less similar. “These people are similar because they have important parts of their genome in common, which is the DNA sequence,” the researcher said. On the other hand, live experiences affect the degree of activation of certain genes. Esteller found that similar genomes have a lot in common, but their epigenomes and microbiome are different: “Genetics bring them closer, epigenetics and microbiome separate them.” This discrepancy suggests that the similarity between similar pairs has more to do with their DNA than the environment in which they were raised. This means that the similarities between them are only one Coincidence lucky Because of population growth. “There are so many people in the world today that the system ends up repeating itselfEsteller comments. It is reasonable to assume that everyone has a lookalike somewhere.

This discovery also sparks hope for medical diagnoses because if people have enough genes in common to look alike, they may have The same predisposition to diseases: “There appears to be a very strong genetic link which means that two similar individuals also have similar traits at the genomic level,” he commented. Oliver Element, director of the Englander Institute for Precision Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. Furthermore, Esteller hypothesized that there is also an association between facial features and behavior patterns and that the results of his study could help forensic medicine, for example by providing the identity of a criminal possessing only a DNA sample.