Mending Faulty Genes

Plants Mend their Own Faulty DNA, by Apoorva Mandavilli
"Plants can correct defective genes inherited from their parents by reverting to an ancestral gene sequence."

"The parent generation had a mutant version of a gene dubbed hothead, which causes the plants to have fused flowers. Even when each parent carriet two mutant versions of the gene, 10 percent of the next generation had normal flowers... these plants had somehow retrieved ancestral code that allowed them to repair the mutant gene."

"Although the discovery was made in plants, [Robert] Pruitt suspects that animals, including humans, might also use this method to correct faulty genes."

"There's another way that genetic information can be inherited, which we've been blissfully unaware of the last 100 years or so," Pruitt says. "To me that just boggles the mind. Then you really start to wonder what else is out there"

My Comment: This finding, together with the studies in mutations' reversal indicates that instead of a darwinian evolving of organisms, life tends to stability (Stasis), to preserve and to perpetuate their given patterns.

Related Links:

Robert E. Pruitt's Lab

Science 25 March 2005: Vol. 307. no. 5717, pp. 1852 - 1853
News of the Week. GENETICS: Talking About a Revolution: Hidden RNA May Fix Mutant Genes, by Elizabeth Pennisi

Research News: Plant Inherits Repaired Gene
Listen to this story...
Talk of the Nation, March 25, 2005 · Researchers report finding that some plants may have a hidden mechanism for repairing damaged genetic material -- even when the plant received two copies of the damaged gene.
Guest: Robert E. Pruitt, associate professor of plant molecular genetics, Purdue University.

Heresy: Genetic 'memory'.