Inheritance

11 Key excerpts on "Inheritance"

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  Cambridge O Level Biology 5090

  • Azhar ul Haque Sario(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • tredition

    (Publisher)

  In simplest terms, the diversity and functionality of proteins in our bodies are a direct result of the varied sequences of amino acids. Each sequence leads to a unique shape, and this shape is integral to the protein’s role in our body. It's like a complex and fascinating 3D puzzle where each piece must fit perfectly to create a functional whole.

  Inheritance

  Inheritance is a fascinating process in biology, where living beings pass on their genetic information, like a secret recipe, from one generation to the next. This is much like how family traditions or secrets are passed down through generations, but in this case, it's about the DNA, the blueprint of life.

  When we think about Inheritance, we usually think of parents and their children. Parents give a mix of their genetic material to their children, which is why you might have your mother's eyes or your father's smile. This mixing and passing down of genetic traits is like a nature's lottery, where each child gets a unique set of genes from their parents, making them similar, yet uniquely different.

  The DNA, which is the carrier of this genetic information, is made up of tiny parts called genes. Each gene is like a small instruction manual that tells the body how to build and operate. These genes are responsible for your hair color, height, eye color, and even some aspects of your personality and health.

  Now, let’s imagine DNA as a library full of books. Each book (gene) contains specific instructions for different parts of your body. When you're born, you inherit this library from your parents – half from your mom and half from your dad. This is why siblings can look alike but are never exactly the same. Each gets a different mix of books from the family library.

  However, Inheritance isn't just about what we can see. It also includes things we can't see, like our risk for certain diseases or how we might react to different foods or medications. This invisible Inheritance can sometimes surprise families, revealing traits that might have been hidden for generations.

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  The Fundamentals of Brain Development

  Integrating Nature and Nurture

  • Joan Stiles(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Harvard University Press

    (Publisher)

  Each discipline provided a different perspective on the question of in-heritance, and during the late nineteenth and the early twentieth cen-turies, each provided unique contributions to the evolving concept of the gene as the material, physical unit of intergenerational inheri-tance. Evolutionary biology focuses on the origins of species and species change over time. Population genetics takes a quantitative ap-proach, asking about frequencies and distributions of characteristics and traits within and across generations. The study of hereditary trans-mission focuses on single genes and allelic variation. Developmental biology involves the study of the individual organism as it passes from larva to pupa or from embryo to fetus. The very brief history that follows touches on only a small sample of the ideas and discoveries that have contributed to the modern concept of the gene. Indeed, as will be clear, it is a concept that continues to change and evolve. The gene as it was first defined by Johannsen in 1911 is not the gene that Watson and Crick described in 1953, and the gene that Watson and Crick described is not the gene of modern de-velopmental geneticists. There are many threads to the story of the gene and many themes that could be emphasized. The account that follows will focus on three. The first is the overarching issue of ac-counting for both the constancy and the variability of biological inher-itance. It is the most ancient and the most persistent question and it is at the heart of the attempt to define the concept of a gene. The second theme concerns the level of scientific inquiry, because the perception of what a gene is can be influenced by the question the investigator has chosen to ask. An investigator who wishes to understand the source of a trait’s frequency and distribution in a population poses a different question than an investigator who seeks to account for individual vari-32 The Gene

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  Inheritance Systems and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis

  • Eva Jablonka, Marion J. Lamb(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Functional information is defined as any difference in the (external or internal) environment of a system that has made a systematic, causal difference to that system’ s goal-directed behaviour, which in an evolu- tionary context is fitness-promoting (Jablonka, 2002). We can think about heredity in terms of information transmission because a receiver (e.g. a cell in a body, or an individual in a group) may also be a sender of information across generations. We have argued that for information to be inherited it is necessary that a receiver interprets (or processes) an informational input from a sender who was previously a receiver. When the processing by the receiver leads to the 68 Elements in the Philosophy of Biology reconstruction of the same or a slightly modified organization-state as that in the sender, and when variations in the sender’ s state lead to similar variations in the receiver, we can talk about the hereditary transmission of information. . . . Clearly, if the hereditary transmission of information is seen in this way, there is no need to assume that all hereditary variations and all evolution depend on DNA changes. (Jablonka and Lamb, 2006, p. 237) Variation in patterns of chromatin, in small RNA profiles, and in socially and culturally learned patterns of behaviour in a parent can all reduce the uncertainty about the phenotype of the offspring and lead to parent–offspring similarity. Recognizing that there are different Inheritance systems means that information processed by all systems that contribute to heredity must be integrated if phenotypic evolution is to be understood. Such integration requires a broad theoretical framework that can accommodate all different hereditary inputs under one formalism. In Section 3.9 we discussed the Price equation as the basis for a general formulation of the evolutionary change in a trait.

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  Breeding and Hybridization of Food Fishes

  • Biswas, K P(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Daya Publishing House

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 7: Genetics in Reproductive Biology Inheritance and Variability Genetics is the science of Inheritance and variability. Inheritance is the capacity of the offspring to acquire the characters and peculiarities of development of the parents. Variability is contrary to Inheritance, being the ability to change hereditary factors, as well as the manifestation of their properties in the process of development. The most remarkable feature of the reproductive process is that the young shows significant similarity to their progenitors, all species of plants and animals producing offspring resembling themselves. Individual features are inherited by each generation with great precision. Members of the same family will always differ from each other and most or even all of them will differ from their parents,no matter how great resemblance exists between them. In some cases the variability related to distribution of different characters among offsprings operates according to definite laws of Inheritance, while in other cases it is related to environmental conditions. Variability due to new gene combination is called combined hereditary variability. In the process of development and vital activity of the organism influenced by both external and internal conditions, hereditary changes appear due to changes of genetic structure and this is mutational variability. When variability is due to a modified manifestation of a character, due to environmental conditions, it is called modification. Here it is not the definite manifestation of the character having a modified variability that is inherited, but the whole range of variation of the character depending on the environment- the so-called reaction norm of the organism. Strictly speaking, there are no hereditary changes, but all the character This ebook is exclusively for this university only. Cannot be resold/distributed.

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  Ingenious

  The Unintended Consequences of Human Innovation

  • Peter Gluckman, Mark Hanson(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Harvard University Press

    (Publisher)

  But could information about the environment itself be passed from one generation to the next by becoming embodied in some way? Some evolutionary biologists argue that because, for humans, our characteristics determine the environment we create, the niche we modify, and because those characteristics are ultimately determined in turn by our genes, it follows that culture and human Inheritance, Inheritance 63 particularly genetic Inheritance, are inseparably intertwined. This is the concept of gene–culture coevolution, which we will return to in Chapter 4. Right now, we need to think about a further possibility—“non-genomic” but biological Inheritance. If we dis-cover that such mechanisms exist, it strengthens the need to consider a broader range of evolutionary mechanisms. The idea that the environment in one generation might, by al-tering the characteristics of adult individuals, impact on the next generation is not new. It is usually associated with the notion of the Inheritance of acquired characteristics, an idea that is often ascribed to Lamarck but was broadly accepted at that time—even though, in its crudest form, it can easily be shown to be implausible. A female dog losing a leg in an accident is not likely to give birth to a three- legged puppy. And any sheep farmer who has been docking lambs’ tails over generations of his flock to stop flies from breeding in the dung that clings to their tails, knows that Inheritance of acquired characteristics at that level does not occur—new lambs need to have their tails docked. Jewish boys still are born with a foreskin despite 4,000 years and perhaps 200 generations of circumcision. August Weismann was a great German biologist and an enthusi-astic supporter of Darwin. He saw these obvious flaws in crude La-marckism, and to make the point he conducted an experiment in which he cut of the tails of mice over many generations, in order to see whether their ofspring would also be tail-less.14 Needless to say, they were not.

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  Molecular Hematology

  • Drew Provan, John G. Gribben, Drew Provan, John Gribben, Drew Provan, John Gribben(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 25 History and development of molecular biology

  Paul Moss

  School of Cancer Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

  1. Evolution is the central tenet of biology
  2. The understanding of monogenic and polygenic Inheritance
  3. DNA as the conduit of genetic information
  4. The rough guide to the human genome
  5. Experimental techniques and molecular biology
  6. Conclusion
  7. Further reading

  Evolution is the central tenet of biology

  It is 160 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (Figure 25.1 a). Darwin's far-reaching insights placed natural variation and adaptation as the prime determinants of population change. Evolution is now recognized as the unifying theme of all biology, including hematology and medicine, and these landmark observations can perhaps be recognized as the initiation of the modern discipline of molecular genetics.

  Figure 25.1

  (a) Charles Darwin. (b) Gregor Mendel. (c) Francis Crick and James Watson. (d) Fred Sanger.

  However, despite his unique vision and imagination, Darwin was never able to understand the nature of genetic Inheritance. It was clear that phenotypic characteristics were passed from one generation to the next, but usually these characteristics were “blended,” so that a combination of tall and short parents would produce a child of medium height. Darwin proposed his own model for heredity which he termed pangenesis, in which cells of the body shed gemmules that collect in the reproductive organs. The concept was that all the tissues in the body thus had some impact on Inheritance, but this concept has clearly been superseded. At this time there was no concept of the distinction between the germline and somatic tissue, and it is therefore not surprising that even brilliant scientists such as Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck believed that acquired phenotypic features could be passed, through reproduction, into the subsequent generation. However, despite his somewhat imperfect conclusions, Lamarck was actually an extremely important figure in evolutionary theory, as he developed the concept that a species can change between

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  Death, Deeds, and Descendents

  Inheritance in Modern America

  • Remi Clignet, Jens Beckert, Brooke Harrington(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  mortis causa are associated with the evocation of sharply focused feelings toward particular relatives, toward the behaviors or ideas the latter epitomize, and toward the ideals that such behaviors symbolize. In this sense, Inheritance is the repository of collective memories or values (Lichtman 1982; Hyde 1983). Thus, Inheritance is about specific heritages.

  Interaction among the Genetic, Economic, and Cultural Components of Inheritance

  Heredity, Inheritance, and heritage, as forms of transfer, respectively, of genetic, economic, and cultural capital, interact constantly with one another. Thus, long-term cycles of upward or downward economic mobility have a double effect on the developmental opportunities and constraints of successive generations. Since these cycles affect patterns of exogamous marriages and more specifically the economic, social, and cultural distance separating the respective familial groups of conjugal partners, the same cycles broaden or restrict the genetic pool of the populations under consideration. As such, they modify the limits of the human capital that individuals can acquire.9 Yet these long-term economic forces also influence life-styles, notably with respect to nutrition and health, and thus the actual mobilization of this human capital. In a nutshell, economic growth facilitates the systematic development of human capital but, in turn, interindividual variations in the accumulation of this particular type of asset account for differences in the creation and upkeep of material wealth.

  The preeminence of cultural over other forms of capital comes from the very fact that culture represents both “the rules and the stakes” of the game (Bowles and Gintis 1986:119).10

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  Introduction to Molecular Biology, Genomics and Proteomics for Biomedical Engineers

  • Robert B. Northrop, Anne N. Connor(Authors)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  5 The Basis of Genetic Inheritance . INTRODUCTION How. are. genetic. traits. passed. on. from. parent. to. offspring?. In. very. simple. terms,. genes. are. the. instruction.book.for.building.an.organism.by.specifying.what.proteins.to.use.and,.equally.impor-tant,. when. to. use. them . . The. genetic. instruction. for. a. trait. is. called. the. genotype . . The. physical. expression.of.a.gene.is.called.the. phenotype . .Just.as.phenotypes.vary,.so.do.genotypes . You.may.have.heard.expressions.such.as.“They’ve.found.a.new.gene.for.breast.cancer,”.but. this.is.misleading . . Oncogenes,. or. cancer. genes,. are. simply. “misspellings”. of. normal. genes . . For. example,.the.“ATM”.gene. (ataxia telangiectasia mutated) .normally.controls.cell.division.but,.in.an. altered.form,.it.may.play.a.role.in.the.formation.of.cancers . .Everyone.has.this.gene,.but.about.1%.of. Americans.carry.the.defective.form.[LBNL.2006] . An.important.principle.in.genetic.Inheritance.is. polymorphism ,.or.varying.forms.taken.by.genes. at.the.same.locus . .We.do.not.have.different.genes;.we.have.different.versions.of.the.same.genes . . Genes.can.vary.as.alleles.or.mutations . Genetic variation through alleles .(normal.variations.of.genes):.Specifically,.an.allele.is.a.DNA. sequence.variation.that.is.common.in.the.population . .No.single.allele.is.regarded.as.the.standard. or.default.version . .Instead,.there.are.two.or.more.equally.“normal”.alternatives . .To.be.classed.as. an.allele,.the.least.common.variation.in.a.gene’s.sequence.must.have.a.frequency.of.1%.or.more.in. the.population.[Twyman.2003] . .These.variations.are.also.called. polymorphisms . .If.the.frequency.is. lower.than.1%,.the.genetic.variation.is.regarded.as.a. mutation . .The.term. allele .is.often.used.inter-changeably.with.the.term. gene . Example :.An.example.of.variation.based.on.alleles.is.human.eye.color . .Eye.color.is.determined. by.a.combination.of.alleles.in.several.genes .

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  Organisms, Agency, and Evolution

  • D. M. Walsh(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Epigenetic Inheritance: The transmission and imprinting of epigenetic methylation ‘markers’ discussed above, looks to be a distinctly nongenetic mechanism for the passing on of crucial developmental resources. This appears to be a separate mechanism that operates independently of the replication of DNA. Heritable epigenetic variation is decoupled from genetic variation by definition. Hence, there are selectable epigenetic variations that are independent of DNA variations, and evolutionary change on the epigenetic axis is inevitable. The only question is whether these variations are persistent and common enough to lead to interesting evolutionary effects. (Jablonka and Lamb 2002: 93) In addition, cellular structures reoccur generation on generation without the mediation of replicated genes. ‘Cortical Inheritance’, for example, has been demonstrated in paramecia. Errors and alterations in the cuticle of paramecia are passed on to daughter cells during cell division (Beisson 2011). Jablonka and Raz (2009) have documented more than 100 instances of epigenetic Inheritance in 42 different species (Jablonka and Lamb 2010). It is no mere fringe phenomenon. 10 8 I take the term ‘Inheritance pluralism’ and its alternate ‘Inheritance holism’ from Mameli (2005), although my conception of holism departs significantly from Mameli’ s. 9 The idea of ‘causal spread’ comes from Clark and Chalmers (1998). 10 Gilbert and Epel (2009) have produced an impressive list of documented instances of epigenetic Inheritance in animals. See their Appendix D. 100 Beyond replicator biology Behavioural Inheritance: Behavioural Inheritance systems involve those in which offspring learn behaviours from parents or others. A classic example is to be found in the spread of the ability of great tits (Parus major) in Britain to extract the cream from milk bottles left on the doorsteps of houses. Further examples include dietary preferences that are transmitted to mammalian foe- tuses though the placenta.

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  Social Information Transmission and Human Biology

  • Jonathan CK Wells, Simon Strickland, Kevin Laland(Authors)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  We propose 108 Social Information Transmission and Human Biology that the organism can be considered as an entity that can selectively direct its resources toward both genetic and nongenetic fitness by transmitting both genetic and nongenetic information over time. When genes are transmitted over time, two important effects occur. First, each individual passes on only half her or his genes to each member of the next generation. The human genome project has estimated the number of genes in humans at around 40,000. After about 16 generations, the direct descendants of a human may contain not a single one of that ancestor’s genes by direct Inheritance. Second, each time an offspring is produced the parental genes are mixed up. The consequence of these effects is that even where genes are successfully transmitted over many generations, they never meet the same selection of genes in any new gene-team. The process of sexual reproduction continually dismantles individual gene-teams. There is no process of sexual reproduction in the replication of nongenetic infor-mation, so it need not necessarily break down over time. The name of any individual is as valid a label denoting that person today as it was millennia ago. The significance of this for evolutionary theory is that genes and nongenetic information may offer different potential returns for a given investment. For any nonhuman species, this approach may be less relevant because the pertinent nongenetic information is sym-bolic and only viable through self-consciousness and learning. But for our species, the replication of symbolic information is more successful than that of our genes at preserving our uniqueness, our individuality. With the evolution of consciousness came both the awareness of death and the urge to overcome it through immortality (Bauman, 1992). Human literature dating from the Epic of Gilgamesh to the present day is testimony of our powerful desire to overcome death.

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  Transgenerational Epigenetics

  • (Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Academic Press

    (Publisher)

  It has been suggested that Waddington's concept of epigenetics is too broad to be useful. Thus, many scientists have attempted to offer alternative, more restrictive definitions that require understanding of underlying molecular mechanisms [ 116 – 118 ]. In 1994, Robin Holliday defined epigenetics as “the study of changes in gene expression, which occur in organisms with differentiated cells, and the mitotic Inheritance of given patterns of gene expression” [116]. Since then, defining epigenetics has been a point of contention that depends largely on the field of biology from which it originates, with molecular biologists operating on a largely mechanistic level and ecological and evolutionary biologists operating on a more phenomenological level. As Eva Jablonka pointed out in her synthesis of what epigenetics is today, the term “epigenetics” has often been used to describe phenomena that transcend the realm of cell fate and development to include epigenetic Inheritance in the broad sense, which includes “both cellular Inheritance through the germline, and soma-to-soma information-transfer that bypasses the germline” [119]. The latter refers to epigenetic transmission of information such as mother–embryo interactions. Neil Youngson and Emma Whitelaw differentiate transgenerational epigenetic effect from transgenerational epigenetic Inheritance, where the former is used to describe phenomena for which the underlying route of transmission of epigenetic factors is not restricted to epigenetic marks in the gamete (i.e., maternal milk, yolk, behavior) or have yet to be elucidated, and the latter, a special category of the former, involving germ line transmission of epigenetic marks [ 120, 121 ]. Other leaders in the field, such as Michael Skinner and David Crews, propose that for an epigenetic phenomenon to be truly transgenerational, it must be transmitted meiotically through the germ line without influence of the inducing parental environment [ 122, 123 ]

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