TwinsUK: The UK Adult Twin Registry Update

TwinsUK is the largest cohort of community-dwelling adult twins in the UK. The registry comprises over 14,000 volunteer twins (14,838 including mixed, single and triplets); it is predominantly female (82%) and middle-aged (mean age 59). In addition, over 1800 parents and siblings of twins are regist...

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Published in:Twin research and human genetics Vol. 22; no. 6; pp. 523 - 529
Main Authors: Verdi, Serena, Abbasian, Golboo, Bowyer, Ruth C. E., Lachance, Genevieve, Yarand, Darioush, Christofidou, Paraskevi, Mangino, Massimo, Menni, Cristina, Bell, Jordana T., Falchi, Mario, Small, Kerrin S., Williams, Frances M. K., Hammond, Christopher J., Hart, Deborah J., Spector, Timothy D., Steves, Claire J.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England Cambridge University Press 01.12.2019
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Aging
Biomedical research
Cognitive ability
Data collection
Disease
Diseases in Twins - epidemiology
Diseases in Twins - genetics
Diseases in Twins - metabolism
Diseases in Twins - microbiology
DNA methylation
Epidemiology
Epigenetics
Female
Gene expression
Genetic Markers
Genome-Wide Association Study
Genotype & phenotype
Humans
Incidence
Longitudinal Studies
Male
Metabolome
Metabolomics
Metagenome
Middle Aged
Next-generation sequencing
Phenotyping
Questionnaires
Registries - statistics & numerical data
Telomeres
Twins
Twins - genetics
United Kingdom - epidemiology
Urine
Womens health
Young Adult
United Kingdom
United Kingdom > UK
epidemiology
pain
omics
TwinsUK
ophthalmology
aging
microbiome
ISSN:1832-4274, 1839-2628
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:TwinsUK is the largest cohort of community-dwelling adult twins in the UK. The registry comprises over 14,000 volunteer twins (14,838 including mixed, single and triplets); it is predominantly female (82%) and middle-aged (mean age 59). In addition, over 1800 parents and siblings of twins are registered volunteers. During the last 27 years, TwinsUK has collected numerous questionnaire responses, physical/cognitive measures and biological measures on over 8500 subjects. Data were collected alongside four comprehensive phenotyping clinical visits to the Department of Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology, King’s College London. Such collection methods have resulted in very detailed longitudinal clinical, biochemical, behavioral, dietary and socioeconomic cohort characterization; it provides a multidisciplinary platform for the study of complex disease during the adult life course, including the process of healthy aging. The major strength of TwinsUK is the availability of several ‘omic’ technologies for a range of sample types from participants, which includes genomewide scans of single-nucleotide variants, next-generation sequencing, metabolomic profiles, microbiomics, exome sequencing, epigenetic markers, gene expression arrays, RNA sequencing and telomere length measures. TwinsUK facilitates and actively encourages sharing the ‘TwinsUK’ resource with the scientific community — interested researchers may request data via the TwinsUK website ( http://twinsuk.ac.uk/resources-for-researchers/access-our-data/ ) for their own use or future collaboration with the study team. In addition, further cohort data collection is planned via the Wellcome Open Research gateway ( https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/gateways ). The current article presents an up-to-date report on the application of technological advances, new study procedures in the cohort and future direction of TwinsUK.
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ISSN:1832-4274
1839-2628
DOI:10.1017/thg.2019.65