Embryonic origin of cancer in newborn twins

Abstract

Studying monozygotic twins who present with identical cancers informs on the developmental origins of childhood tumours. Here, we perform whole genome sequencing on multiple tumour, normal, and placental samples to reconstruct the phylogeny of a soft tissue cancer that spread in utero between monozygotic twins. We demonstrate the origin of the tumour from one twin and time its diversification and transplacental spread to the other twin, showing that the spread occurred only once. This generalisable and scalable approach additionally allows us to dissect the earliest stages of twinning, revealing unexpected asymmetrical contributions of embryonic lineages to the placenta and each twin and challenging the classical model of twinning.

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BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@article{walkowiak2026embryonic,
  title = {{Embryonic origin of cancer in newborn twins}},
  author = {Barbara Walkowiak and Sadie Baskind and Manas Dave and Pooja Balasubramanian and Nathaniel Anderson and Jonathan Kennedy and Thomas R. W. Oliver and Rohan Verma and Sarita Depani and Simon Hannam and Tom Watson and Dyanne Rampling and Karin Straathof and Liina Palm and J. Ciaran Hutchinson and Henry Lee-Six and Olga Slater and Sam Behjati},
  journal = {Nature Communications},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-78178-5},
  url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78178-5},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}

RIS

TY  - JOUR
TI  - Embryonic origin of cancer in newborn twins
AU  - Barbara Walkowiak
AU  - Sadie Baskind
AU  - Manas Dave
AU  - Pooja Balasubramanian
AU  - Nathaniel Anderson
AU  - Jonathan Kennedy
AU  - Thomas R. W. Oliver
AU  - Rohan Verma
AU  - Sarita Depani
AU  - Simon Hannam
AU  - Tom Watson
AU  - Dyanne Rampling
AU  - Karin Straathof
AU  - Liina Palm
AU  - J. Ciaran Hutchinson
AU  - Henry Lee-Six
AU  - Olga Slater
AU  - Sam Behjati
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/06
JO  - Nature Communications
DO  - 10.1038/s41467-026-78178-5
UR  - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78178-5
AB  - Studying monozygotic twins who present with identical cancers informs on the developmental origins of childhood tumours. Here, we perform whole genome sequencing on multiple tumour, normal, and placental samples to reconstruct the phylogeny of a soft tissue cancer that spread in utero between monozygotic twins. We demonstrate the origin of the tumour from one twin and time its diversification and transplacental spread to the other twin, showing that the spread occurred only once. This generalisable and scalable approach additionally allows us to dissect the earliest stages of twinning, revealing unexpected asymmetrical contributions of embryonic lineages to the placenta and each twin and challenging the classical model of twinning.
SN  - 2041-1723
ER  -

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