Analysis of data from the families of identical twins.

Genetic models are described which exploit the unique relationships that exist within the families of identical twins to obtain weighted least squares estimates of additive, dominance and epistatic components of genetic variance as well as estimates of the contributions of X-linked genes, maternal effects and three sources of environmental variation. Since all of the relationships required to achieve a resolution of these variance components are contained within each family unit, the model would appear to be superior to previous approaches to the analysis of quantitative traits in man.