Structural inheritance

Structural 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 infections agents of diseases such as scrapie (in sheep and goats), bovine spongiform encephalopathy ('mad cow disease') and Cruetzfeld-Jakob disease (although the protein-only hypothesis of prion transmission has been considered contentious until recently.) Prion-like propagating secondary structures also exist in yeast,. Structural inheritance has also been seen in the orientation of cilia in protozoans such as Paramecium and |Tetrahymena, and 'handedness' of the sprial of the cell in |Tetrahymena, 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.

External link

 * Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences supplement: Self-Perpetuating Structural States in Biology, Disease, and Genetics