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Plants May Be Able To Correct Mutated Genes

Posted by timothy on from the early-stages dept.

ddutt writes "NY Times is running a story that talks of an exciting new discovery, which, if confirmed, could represent an unprecedented exception to Mendel's laws of inheritance. The discovery involves.. 'plants that possess a corrected version of a defective gene inherited from both their parents, as if some handy backup copy with the right version had been made in the grandparents' generation or earlier.'"

3 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How this impacts evolutionary theory by cot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This would only be true for these specific plants and only if this mechanism ALWAYS prevented mutation.

    If these conditions applied to us, we wouldn't have cancer.

    --

  2. Makes Sense by latent_biologist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Most Plant genomes are crazy complex. Besides that, polyploidy is often the norm in plant chromosomes. With that much genetic material to work with, i guess you'd be bound to find a 'do-over' someplace.

  3. Re:How this impacts evolutionary theory by feepness · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Full blown "Cancer" only happens when these problems get out of control, and the body can no longer contain/fix them.

    Furthermore, if lethal cancer occurs once you are past child-bearing age (around 30 up until recently), it isn't such a "bad thing" for the species. Once you've reproduced, evolution is done with you.