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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.'"

6 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. How this impacts evolutionary theory by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    FWIW, the paper this morning was pointing out how this discovery might leave a gaping hole in evolutionary theory. The crux of the problem is that "micro-evolution" as it were, is dependant on an organism's ability to mutate from generation to generation. If a mechanism exists that prevents or corrects mutations across generations, then the theorists may *again* have to go back to the drawing board.

    Isn't it amazing how the more we know, the less we know? :-)

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    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    1. Re:How this impacts evolutionary theory by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

      Cancer is caused by a DNA mutation that your body failed to correct. Errors are extremely common. The only reason why we survive is our body's repair mechanism. In the case of these plants, neither parent had a correct gene. Without a backup copy, there should have been no way for the gene to revert. Yet it did, so we're left with an odd conundrum. :-)

      That's not to say that the theories behind mutations are all wrong, but we could be seeing something akin to problems with Newtonian physics.

      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    2. Re:How this impacts evolutionary theory by DogDude · · Score: 4, Interesting

      And just to add to your post, from what I understand from all of my doctor/veterinarian friends, cancer in the human body, at least, is quite common. We are simply able to, like with virus and bacteria based diseases, able to fight them off/correct them before they get out of hand. Full blown "Cancer" only happens when these problems get out of control, and the body can no longer contain/fix them.

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  2. I'm pretty close to this research... by Marx_Mrvelous · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My wife was second author on this paper, and did quite a lot of the research! I guess that blows my cover ;)

    This really is no joke, these results are really exciting! I suggest everyone read the article.

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  3. Backup Copies Exist for Many Genes by jestill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My lab does research on plant genomics, and we are involved in research concerning the duplication of genes in the plant discussed in the article.Many of the genes that a plant has exist in multiple copies and that is not a new idea. We can follow the evolutionary history of these duplicated copies and show that they often arise from duplication of the entire genome followed by selective genome loss. We also frequently find that single genes are duplicated by themselves, or that entire segments of a chromosome may be duplicated by the process of 'segmental duplication'. The interesting thing here is that the scientist believe that a second copy of the gene does not exist as a DNA copy, but as an RNA copy. That is an interesting hypothesis, that will need to be explored further.

    --
    "Asleep at the switch? I wasn't asleep, I was drunk!" -- Homer
  4. Order of credit by tlambert · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Credit order generally boils down to:

    (1) Who got the grant
    (2) Who has the most tenure
    (3) Who went to the meetings
    (4) Who wrote the paper
    (5) Whoever is politically in and most needs a paper credit to keep on tenure track
    (6) etc.

    Actually doing work tends to come dead last. Sometimes (as some recent scandals have shown), it doesn't come at all.

    Also, realize that to a scientist, it's not about the credit for getting something done, it's about the fact that it needed to be done, and someone did it.

    For every scientist popularized by the media, there are thousands of them of whom almost nobody has ever heard, but who were critically important for fundamental things we take for granted every day.

    For example, some of the first posts in this thread were going on about retrying the Scopes "Monkey Trial" vs. Darwinian evolution, when most biologists today know that the currently accepted evolutionary theory is Jerry Pounelle's "Punctuated Equilibria", and Darwin is generally only taught for having come up with, and written about, the idea of change in species over time.

    -- Terry