Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Heteropaternal Siblings Misclassified as Dizygotic Twins: A Potential Biasing Factor for Heritability Estimates?

  • Original Research
  • Published:
Behavior Genetics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Heteropaternal superfecundation (HP) occurs when two or more ova are fertilized by sperm from separate males. The resulting siblings are genetically equivalent to half-siblings and share, on average, 25% of their inherited genetic material. In the absence of genetic testing HP siblings could be treated as dizygotic (DZ) twins in behavioral genetic analyses and bias heritability estimates in phenotypic decomposition models. However, the extent to which such misclassification could affect calculated estimates of heritability is currently unknown. Employing simulation analyses, the current study assessed the potential biasing impact across a variety of conditions varying by proportions of DZ twins, sample sizes, and low, moderate, and high levels of genetic and environmental contribution to phenotypic variance. Overall, the results indicated that misclassified HP siblings had minimal impact on estimates of heritability. Nonetheless, greater attention should be paid to the identification of HP siblings within existing and future twin datasets.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The focus of the current study is the misidentification of HP siblings as DZ twins. While it is possible, for example, that same-sex HP siblings could be misidentified as MZ twins it is more likely that they are misidentified as DZ twins, given the phenotypic dissimilarities exhibited by both HP and DZ twins (Segal et al. 2019). Additionally, the misidentification process only applies when DNA sequencing is not employed to identify zygosity.

  2. The accuracy of self-report may depend on the question. Twins’ responses to the question: “Were you and your twin as alike as two peas in a pod?” yielded 98% accuracy, as assessed against blood-typing results across five independent blood group systems; see Cederlöf et al. (1961).

  3. A centimorgan is a common measure of genetic linkage (Murray et al. 1994).

  4. Measurement error is also captured by the nonshared environment component.

  5. When e2 = 0, estimates derived from an ACE model become biased for violating alternative assumptions. To examine the extent to which any potential biasing influence of HP siblings varied across different levels of heritability, supplemental analyses were also conducted (see supplemental material).

  6. All raw twin numbers were rounded to the nearest even number.

References

  • Barnes JC, Wright JP, Boutwell BB, Schwartz JA, Connolly EJ, Nedelec JL, Beaver KM (2014) Demonstrating the validity of twin research in criminology. Criminology 52:588–626

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berry DP, Bohan A, O’Brien AC, Campion FC, McHugh N, Wall E (2020) Heteropaternal superfecundation frequently occurs in multiple-bearing mob-mated sheep. Anim Genet 51:579–583

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blickstein I (2003) Superfecundation and superfetation: lessons from the past on early human development. J Matern-Fetal Neonatal Med 14:217–219

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Borkenau P, Riemann R, Angleitner A, Spinath FM (2002) Similarity of childhood experiences and personality resemblance in monozygotic and dizygotic twins: a test of the equal environments assumption. Personal Individ Differ 33:261–269

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bortolus R, Parazzini F, Chatenoud L, Benzi G, Bianchi MM, Marini A (1999) The epidemiology of multiple births. Hum Reprod Update 5:179–187

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bulbul O, Filoglu G, Altuncul H (2013) Heteropaternal superfecundation: a case report in Turkey. J Fertil 1:112

    Google Scholar 

  • Cederlöf R, Friberg L, Jonsson E, Kaij L (1961) Studies on similarity diagnosis in twins with the aid of mailed questionnaires. Acta Genetica et Statistica Medica 11:338–362

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Conley D, Rauscher E, Dawes C, Magnusson PK, Siegal ML (2013) Heritability and the equal environments assumption: evidence from multiple samples of misclassified twins. Behav Genet 43:415–426

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Derks EM, Dolan CV, Boomsma DI (2006) A test of the equal environment assumption (EEA) in multivariate twin studies. Twin Res Hum Genet 9:403–411

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dolan C, Nivard M, van Dongen J, van der Sluis S, Boomsma D (2015) Methylation as an epigenetic source of random genetic effects in the classical twin design. Adv Genomics Genet 5:1–11

    Google Scholar 

  • Eaves L, Foley D, Silberg J (2003) Has the “equal environments” assumption been tested in twin studies? Twin Res Hum Genet 6:486–489

    Google Scholar 

  • García MG, Bolontrade AJ, Penacino GA, Chiesa IJ, Pérez MS (2015) Heteropaternal superfecundation: implicancies in forensic genetics. Forensic Sci Int 5:e633–e635

    Google Scholar 

  • Girela E, Lorente JA, Alvarez JC, Rodrigo MD, Lorente M, Villanueva E (1997) Indisputable double paternity in dizygous twins. Fertil Steril 67:1159–1161

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hannelius U, Gherman L, Mäkelä VV, Lindstedt A, Zucchelli M, Lagerberg C, Lindgren CM (2007) Large-scale zygosity testing using single nucleotide polymorphisms. Twin Res Hum Genet 10:604–625

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hansen HE, Simonsen BT (2008) A case of heteropaternal superfecundation in a pair of Danish twins. Forensic Sci Int 1:514–515

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris K, Halpern C, Haberstick B, Smolen A (2013) The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) sibling pairs data. Twin Res Hum Genet 16:391–398

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • James WH (1993) The incidence of superfecundation and of double paternity in the general population. Acta Geneticae Medicae Et Gemellologiae 42:257–262

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knopik VS, Neiderhiser JM, DeFries JC, Plomin R (2017) Behavioral genetics, 7th edn. Worth Publishers, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Lenau F, Hahn E, Peters AL, Gottschling J, Thiel W, Spinath FM (2017) Zygosity determination in twin studies: a validation of zygosity questionnaires using DNA in the German TwinLife Study. TwinLife Work Pap Ser 1:1–13

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu C, Molenaar PC, Neiderhiser JM (2018) The impact of variation in twin relatedness on estimates of heritability and environmental influences. Behav Genet 48:44–54

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lu H, Wang C, Wu F, Li J (1994) Paternity identification in twins with different fathers. J Forensic Sci 39:1100–1102

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maes HH (2005) ACE Model. In: Everitt B (ed) Encyclopedia of statistics in behavioral science (vol 2). Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken, pp 5–10

    Google Scholar 

  • Mahmood HK, Omar AJ, Salih KM (2017) Paternity cases within a medicolegal context: a case study of heteropaternal superfecundation in Iraq. Arab J Forensic Sci Forensic Med 230:1–7

    Google Scholar 

  • Mogollón F, Casas-Vargas A, Rodrígues F, Usaquén W (2020) Twins from different fathers: a heteropaternal superfecundation case report in Colombia. Biomédica 40:604–608

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murray JC, Buetow KH, Weber JL, Ludwigsen S, Scherpbier-Heddema T, Manion F, Duyk GM (1994) A comprehensive human linkage map with centimorgan density. Cooperative Human Linkage Center (CHLC). Science 265:2049–2054

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neale MC, Hunter MD, Pritikin JN, Zahery M, Brick TR, Kirkpatrick RM, Estabrook R, Bates TC, Maes HH, Boker SM (2016) OpenMx 2.0: extended structural equation and statistical modeling. Psychometrika 81:535–549

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nichols RC, Bilbro WC Jr (1966) The diagnosis of twin zygosity. Hum Hered 16:265–275

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reed T, Plassman BL, Tanner CM (2005) Verification of self-report of zygosity determined via DNA testing in a subset of the NAS-NRC twin registry 40 years later. Twin Res Hum Genet 8:362–367

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Segal NL, Craig JM, Umstad MP (2019) Challenge to the assumed rarity of heteropaternal superfecundation: findings from a case report. Aust J Forensic Sci 23:1–6

    Google Scholar 

  • Sun M, Zhang XN, Wu D, Liu QB, Wu YM (2018) A case study of heteropaternal superfecundation in a pair of Chinese twins. Aust J Forensic Sci 50:341–344

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wenk RE, Houtz T, Brooks M, Chiafari FA (1992) How frequent is heteropaternal superfecundation? Acta Geneticae Medicae Et Gemellologiae 41:43–47

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

No funds, grants, or other support were received.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Law and Justice Department, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ, USA

    Ian A. Silver

  2. Corrections Institute, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    Ian A. Silver

  3. School of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati, TDC 660-E, 2610 McMicken Circle, Cincinnati, 45221-0389, OH, USA

    Joseph L. Nedelec & Holly Lonergan

  4. Department of Psychology, California State University – Fullerton, Fullerton, CA, USA

    Nancy L. Segal

Authors
  1. Ian A. Silver
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Joseph L. Nedelec
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Nancy L. Segal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Holly Lonergan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joseph L. Nedelec.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

Ian A. Silver, Joseph L. Nedelec, Nancy L. Sega, Holly Lonergan declare no conflicts of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Edited by Valerie Knopik.

Supplementary information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 105 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Silver, I.A., Nedelec, J.L., Segal, N.L. et al. Heteropaternal Siblings Misclassified as Dizygotic Twins: A Potential Biasing Factor for Heritability Estimates?. Behav Genet 51, 137–143 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-020-10039-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-020-10039-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation