TalkA Challenge to the Laws of Heredity?
There’s a fascinating piece of research and discussion in today’s Nature, about a potentially new function that RNA may play in heredity and the expression of hereditary traits. Up until now, RNA has previously been considered a messenger that translates our genetic code (DNA) into proteins, which are the building blocks of our body.
Now, it seems that (at least in terms of certain experimental mice) RNA may actually influence the expression of hereditary traits.
Says Paul Soloway of Cornell University in the discussion piece: “A particularly intriguing possibility is that such RNAs regulate other non-genetic modes of inheritance, such as metabolic or behavioral imprinting.”
What does this mean to the rest of us? Genes are just as important as they ever were, but we already knew they aren’t the full story. They’re just the first chapter. Of a book that is still being written. (Stay tuned for the next installment)
Read a good summary of the research from Scientific American
Read a more detailed account from HealthDay
Technorati Tags: genes, RNA, heredity, inheritance patterns, research
