Structural inheritance
 |
It has been suggested that Cortical Inheritance be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) Proposed since January 2011. |
Structural inheritance or cortical inheritance is the transmission of a trait in a living organism by a self-perpetuating spatial structures. This is in contrast to the transmission of digital information such as is found in DNA sequences, which accounts for the vast majority of known genetic variation.
Examples of structural inheritance include the propagation of prions, the infectious proteins of diseases such as scrapie (in sheep and goats), bovine spongiform encephalopathy ('mad cow disease') and Creutzfeld-Jakob disease (although the protein-only hypothesis of prion transmission has been considered contentious until recently.) [1] Prions based on heritable protein structure also exist in yeast.[2][3][4] Structural inheritance has also been seen in the orientation of cilia in protozoans such as Paramecium[5] and Tetrahymena,[6] and 'handedness' of the spiral of the cell in Tetrahymena,[6] and shells of snails. Some organelles also have structural inheritance, such as the centriole, and the cell itself (defined by the plasma membrane) may also be an example of structural inheritance.
Various additional examples of structural inheritance are presented in the recent book Origination of Organismal Form.
[edit] External links
- Lindquist, S. L. (December 2002). "Colloquium: Self-Perpetuating Structural States in Biology, Disease, and Genetics". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 99 (Suppl 4): 16377–506. doi:10.1073/pnas.212504699. http://www.pnas.org/content/vol99/suppl_4/.
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ Soto C, Castilla J (July 2004). "The controversial protein-only hypothesis of prion propagation". Nat. Med. 10 (Suppl): S63–7. doi:10.1038/nm1069. PMID 15272271.
- ^ Masison DC, Wickner RB (October 1995). "Prion-inducing domain of yeast Ure2p and protease resistance of Ure2p in prion-containing cells". Science 270 (5233): 93–5. doi:10.1126/science.270.5233.93. PMID 7569955. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=7569955.
- ^ Tuite MF, Lindquist SL (November 1996). "Maintenance and inheritance of yeast prions". Trends Genet. 12 (11): 467–71. doi:10.1016/0168-9525(96)10045-7. PMID 8973157. http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/0168-9525(96)10045-7.
- ^ Serio TR, Cashikar AG, Kowal AS, Sawicki GJ, Lindquist SL (2001). "Self-perpetuating changes in Sup35 protein conformation as a mechanism of heredity in yeast". Biochem. Soc. Symp. (68): 35–43. PMID 11573346.
- ^ Beisson J, Sonneborn TM (February 1965). "CYTOPLASMIC INHERITANCE OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CELL CORTEX IN PARAMECIUM AURELIA". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 53 (2): 275–82. doi:10.1073/pnas.53.2.275. PMC 219507. PMID 14294056. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=219507.
- ^ a b Nelsen EM, Frankel J, Jenkins LM (March 1989). "Non-genic inheritance of cellular handedness". Development 105 (3): 447–56. PMID 2612360. http://dev.biologists.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=2612360.
 |
This genetics article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
