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Two sets of DNA in one person?

Sunday, April 27, 2008



A while back I was watching one of my favorite channels "TLC", and I viewed a documentary called "I am my own twin".


It's about people who where shocked to find out that they were chimeric.


Basically a chimeric person is one who was supposed to be a fraternal twin. Of course fraternal twins are are the result of two eggs are fertilized with two sperm. But instead of both eggs developing separately, they fuse very early in development, and then develop as one person.



It was first that thought that chimeric's would have some sort of visual clue's like skin in different shades, or two different color eyes, but the medical community is finding out that this is not always the case.


There is also a condition called Mosaic where there is a slight variation cell to cell with DNA. As I understand it, with chimeric's there is a certain area where all the cells have a different set of DNA. For instance everywhere else in the body may have one set of DNA, but but if a sample is taken from hair, it may contain a completely different set of DNA than say the saliva.


I find this very interesting because how would one know that they are chimeric? And has anyone ever been found not guilty of a crime because the DNA sample retrieved did not come from the same organ as the sample left at a crime scene? And what about paternity tests? Surely some of those many men on the Maury Povitch show are chimeric...right?


I hope more research is done on chimeric's because there seems to be a lot more to be learned.



Your thoughts?


12 comments:

Anonymous at: 4/28/08, 12:53 AM said...

trina


i think i saw that show a while bake............that is very wierd.........but so interesting!!

FOL at: 5/2/08, 10:02 PM said...

So that's where the word 'chimera' comes from.
I've always used that randomly to describe an illusion or a mirage type thing.

But I guess it has a double-meaning (pardon the pun)

Kasana at: 5/3/08, 10:46 AM said...

Trina- I agree with hun.
I find it interesting as well.

Steups- Actually it comes from greek mythology. A chimera is a fire breathing monster with the head of a lion, body of a goat, and tail of a serpent.

Kasana at: 5/3/08, 10:46 AM said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous at: 9/2/09, 6:08 PM said...

I have some thing very similar. Im 20 weeks pregnant and recently found out that I have two placentas but only one baby. Its called Vanishing Twin. The other twin did not form all the way and very early in the pregnancy the surviving twin or placenta absorbed the twin that did not make it. I don't know if it means that my baby will have two DNA's but he is in fact healthy and doing fine.

Kasana at: 9/4/09, 1:40 AM said...

Wow anon!! Thank you so much for sharing. I know you will have your hands full with your son after giving birth, but I would love for you to come back back and share what (if anything) was unique about your pregnancy and/or birth. I am interested to know if having two placentas causes any significant changes. :)

Anonymous at: 1/7/10, 10:25 PM said...

Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!

Kasana at: 1/18/10, 10:34 PM said...

Aww shucks...you sound like a family member but I appreciate the vote of confidence and I plan on updating it real soon.

Anonymous at: 7/4/11, 8:58 AM said...

Hey(: I just googled this because i was watching a csi episode where the criminal has chimera, i find this so interesting!

Anonymous at: 11/3/11, 1:21 AM said...

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Kasana at: 11/4/11, 9:02 PM said...

Anon (11/03/11) Thank you, and if you click the hyperlinks (the words in white) it will take you to the pages that I used as references.

Anonymous at: 11/2/12, 12:07 PM said...

Haha! I just finished watching the same episode and did the samething!! I found your comment and man I'm late on this!lol