Genetic determination of NOR activity in human lymphocytes from twins.

Activity of nucleolar organizer regions (NORs) was studied in cultured blood lymphocytes from 20 monozygotic (MZ) and 20 dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs. The number of Ag-stained NORs, the degree of staining, and the frequency of acrocentric associations were used as criteria of the NOR activity, the acrocentric chromosomes being identified by G-banding. Analysis of intrapair concordance as well as of intrapair variance showed the number of Ag + NORs and the size of Ag-deposits to be highly heritable traits. Intrapair differences in acorocentric association frequency were not significantly higher in DZ compared with MZ twins.