Epigenetic Epidemiology of Complex Diseases Using Twins

In the past decades, studies on twins have had a great impact on dissecting the genetic and environmental contributions to human diseases and complex traits. In the era of functional genomics, the valuable samples of twins help to bridge the gap between gene activity and environmental conditions through multiple epigenetic mechanisms. This paper reviews the new developments in using twins to study disease-related epigenetic alterations, links them to lifetime environmental exposure with a focus on the discordant twin design and proposes novel data-analytical approaches with the aim of promoting a more efficient use of twins in epigenetic studies of complex human diseases.